Feeding program for tomatoes to get 400 tonnes of them from an hector.?

Question

Or in other words 160 tonnes per acre.

My soil is medium, pH between 6 and 7, climate moderate to hot.

Answer 1

Go with bush varieties if possible and that may cut back on labor and staking (which could be a lot for big spreads). Tomatoes tend to like soil a bit on the acid side, you want to insure that you have adequate calcium. Blossem end rot is a big problem with the tomato when the Ca++ is low. If you are using organic methods to feed and have a single growing season followed by a "winter" figure 12 tons per acre (harvest) and about 300 to 400 hours per. If you have a long season with no breaks in the weather than you may triple that harvest as long as you can irrigate. You can do about 40 tons/ acre. Early blight is a problem with intensive agriculture and pests are a problem in fields that have been pasture recently. They need to be plowed will in advance. Average of 10 tons per acre of well composted manure, a bit less for bird sources of manure and go with some rock phosphate and lime. This gives good Ca++  and phosphates without being too sweet. Nitrogen needs are up to 100 pounds total nitrogen per acre and you can grow a legume cover and turn it under for some of it. Figure half your nitrogen before you plant (a couple weeks early) and the rest of it over the growing season. By the way, this is assuming you are growing your crop for a good quality human food, fresh not processed and not animal fodder which is considerably less demanding/ costly. Keep the nitrogen reasonable with your concentration on good amounts of phosphorus and potassium. Too much nitrogen will cause you to grow a lot of leaf and little fruit and the leaf will be big and soft, perfect to promote bugs and disease. Here, too much nitrogen=aphids. Your pH is right but, as I said, make sure your calcium is right. You want to stay a bit under pH7 so get a good soil analysis done on a number of spots as a comparison and overall evaluation and consider a tissue analysis after things get going to insure your right on the nutrition levels. That much investment needs the insurance provided by some simple tests along the way, short money all things considered. If you have the time and don't have adequate well composted organics, you can get most of your needs from a quality high nitrogen mix of cover crops and still get to your goal of about 40 tonns/ acre. You can use a live mulch like clover between rows of mulch compost to supress weeds (first 5 or 6 weeks the competition will really hurt the plants/ production). Keep it mowed and the clippings go to the compost around the plants. That is just a bit more minor nutrients but it is the protection that is the goal. Any time one can grow nitrogen, you just have to love that! If you can irrigate with drip lines you will get good water savings, less wet leave associated diseases, and your between row cover crop will get enough to do well. A lot of beneficial insects will thrive in your mulches, dead or alive material, much more so than just open soil (that has to be weeded and then weeded while you weed). Weeds literally suck. For growing organic tomatoes you have less disease problems growing as well as marketing by keeping the fruits off the ground but the added cost of this is a consideration. Too high and you have cracking problems. Might be the movement of fluids as I know that a lot of cracking is associated with not keeping up with water needs. Give me a holler if you have a specific question. Oh, P.S, I love Celebrity variety but there are other better suited for huge field production. Find out what disease and pest problems you will have the most of and I'll help you find a good choice for a variety.