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I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

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Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#41

Post by turk- »

davidhunter wrote: post #27
oh_sigh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you optimizing for any experiential aspects of your tomatoes, like taste or texture? Personally, in my area tomatoes are cheap enough to not think about the price, but the products widely available from supermarkets taste like water

> Are you optimizing for any experiential aspects of your tomatoes, like taste or texture? Yes - but this mainly comes down to the varieties that you grow. You can grow varieties that are very tasty and are usually sold in the premium tier. And you can grow high-yielding tomatoes with less taste. >Personally, in my area tomatoes are cheap enough to not think about the price, but the products widely available from sup…

Interesting. I've always wondered why tomatoes in the US taste like shit. Why is there a trade off between high yield and taste? Is there not a high yield + great taste variety?

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#42

Post by pcrh »

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #10

> One of my former classmates in undergrad is a Visiting Researcher at Purdue in the Agricultural Engineering department; he tells me that many tomato transporters actually own or rent fuel tankers that they fill in the South to sell at a markup in the North. In order to make some extra cash on the trip South with the empty tanker, they carry tomatoes. > I know what you might be thinking: is it even sanitary to trans…

The article shows raffia baskets containing tomatoes strapped to the top of fuel tankers. So they're not transported within the same space as the fuel.

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#43

Post by jelliclesfarm »

amirhirsch wrote: post #32
davidhunter wrote: post #9

We (Optimal Agriculture) have built an autonomous growing system for high-tech greenhouses and have achieved 'superhuman' performance in a recent tomato trial. We collect a bunch of sensory data about the crop and growing environment, run cloud-based optimisation, and then control the actuators of the greenhouse autonomously (lighting, screening, heating, cooling, irrigation, etc). We are turning $100M greenhouse fac…

I have been somewhat obsessed with the idea of floating greenhouses. The economics are different than operating a farm on land but with automation it could be possible to deliver superior produce directly to coastal population centers at lower costs.

It will fail. Other than the novelty of floating greenhouses, how do you think this will work?

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#44

Post by pvaldes »

davidhunter wrote: post #20
martythemaniak wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First time I flew into Amsterdam it was dusk and I was mesmerized by the seemingly endless fields of greenhouses growing weed. Only years later (after telling everyone about it) did I learn they were actually growing produce :D Dutch tomatoes have a reputation for being bland ("water bombs"), is making more flavourfull ones just product focus? Like picking the right varietal, picking them at the right time, deliverin…

>First time I flew into Amsterdam it was dusk and I was mesmerized by the seemingly endless fields of greenhouses growing weed. Only years later (after telling everyone about it) did I learn they were actually growing produce :D Lol - yeah the production of cannabis is not yet legalised in The Netherlands. This is a great article on the Dutch greenhouse industry (unfortunately behind paywall): https://www.nationalgeo…

I wouldn't call it "Low-tech" greenhouses in Spain. Is exactly the same stuff than dutch ones, the same seeds and the same bumblebees and the same chemicals, except by the Mediterranean climate and much more sun. (And I wouldn't be surprised to find that some of the Dutch tomatoes sold at an extra price are really cultured in Spain by Dutch companies).

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#45

Post by femto »

opinion-is-bad wrote: post #29
davidhunter wrote: post #9

We (Optimal Agriculture) have built an autonomous growing system for high-tech greenhouses and have achieved 'superhuman' performance in a recent tomato trial. We collect a bunch of sensory data about the crop and growing environment, run cloud-based optimisation, and then control the actuators of the greenhouse autonomously (lighting, screening, heating, cooling, irrigation, etc). We are turning $100M greenhouse fac…

How many square meters will that facility be, and what is the cost to construct? At $100M I don’t see how it would be financially viable. 50k kg a day is approximately 600 acres of tomatoes with our yields. That much land in CA might sell for $6-30M depending on water rights and latitude.

You may be interested to know about Costas Group in Australia. They have gone the high tech route, cramming every bit of productive technology into their greenhouses. They are an established company listed on Australia's stock exchange (ASX:CGC), so can be taken to have proved the viability of such technology. I gather their share price and the size of their profit is a bit of a roller coaster ride, but they do make a profit each year. They mention yields of 70kg/m^2/year (=50000kg/day from 65 acres). I assume that's per square metre of greenhouse and not per square meter of growing bed.

https://thefarmermagazine.com.au/the-costa-group-is-a-runawa...

https://www.tradefarmmachinery.com.au/features/1408/costa-gr...

Edit: Article also mentions a 100kg/m^2/year target.

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#46

Post by fy20 »

hinkley wrote: post #36
opinion-is-bad wrote: post #28

Interesting, but not that dissimilar to the United States. I grow a couple thousand acres of tomatoes in California, all of which are for processing into juices and pastes. These tomatoes are all transported in open-topped trailers by semi, and the losses have always bothered me. There is a tight turn just after leaving our property and the pile of tomatoes there grows steadily with the season as they roll off the to…

If memory serves, that fungus family attacks all nightshades, not just tomatoes, right? So you can't rotate potatoes or eggplant or you get the same problems.

For anyone who didn't know this: tomato, tomatillo, potato, eggplant, pepper and tobacco are all from the same family Solanaceae aka nightshade.

There are many other plants in the same family (they have worldwide distribution), but a lot of them are poisonous.

Even more fun: It's possible to graft plants of different species within the family, so you can create a plant that grows both potatoes and tomatoes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomato

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#47

Post by opinion-is-bad »

davidhunter wrote: post #40
opinion-is-bad wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many square meters will that facility be, and what is the cost to construct? At $100M I don’t see how it would be financially viable. 50k kg a day is approximately 600 acres of tomatoes with our yields. That much land in CA might sell for $6-30M depending on water rights and latitude.

We’ll be getting over 100kg/m2/year. Construction varies but typically $450/m2 for a lit greenhouse.

Definitely a good opportunity for selling the higher value tomatoes restaurants and some upscale markets desire. I like the emission benefits of shorter supply chains too. Best of luck, I doubt our tomatoes will be competing with each other anytime soon.

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#48

Post by jelliclesfarm »

opinion-is-bad wrote: post #28

Interesting, but not that dissimilar to the United States. I grow a couple thousand acres of tomatoes in California, all of which are for processing into juices and pastes. These tomatoes are all transported in open-topped trailers by semi, and the losses have always bothered me. There is a tight turn just after leaving our property and the pile of tomatoes there grows steadily with the season as they roll off the to…

It’s not that much of a loss for them. If you are growing for someone like morning star, they have tightened the supply chain so well that every step is precisely executed. The reason they are open topped is because they go straight to processing and get washed and graded and processed even before they are weighed. It’s beautiful how the system has been designed. Closing the tops is probably saving less than a few pennies per pound but it’s not worth disrupting or delaying the operations systems. Processing company contract out every step of the growing process from nursery to transplanting services to harvesting. Chris Rufer is a model most of us should strive to be..he has perfected tomato processing to an art form.

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#49

Post by g8oz »

atombender wrote: post #30
treeman79 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nightshades are also inflammatory for some autoimmune conditions.

Supposedly because they contain glycoalkaloids. I'm not sure who invented the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP), but it seems to have the same scientifically questionable origins as Leaky Gut Syndrome. I have yet to see any scientific evidence supporting AIP. There's one study hypothesizing that glycoalkaloids can increase/aggravate intestinal permeability (which is a real thing), but this study only looked at mice [1]. The…

Here is one study on AIP

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5647120/

Re: I’ve been reading a whole lot about tomatoes

#50

Post by jelliclesfarm »

opinion-is-bad wrote: post #47
davidhunter wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ll be getting over 100kg/m2/year. Construction varies but typically $450/m2 for a lit greenhouse.

Definitely a good opportunity for selling the higher value tomatoes restaurants and some upscale markets desire. I like the emission benefits of shorter supply chains too. Best of luck, I doubt our tomatoes will be competing with each other anytime soon.

He is doing tomatoes eaten out of hand vs your processing tomatoes. They might as well be different vegetables.(or fruits as this is a tomato)
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