Light day for tomato seedlings: how to properly and how much to highlight

Seedling lighting is one of the most important conditions for the effective cultivation of young tomatoes. The light day of seedlings should be about 12-15 hours, so many vegetable growers are engaged in its illumination. Before growing tomatoes, it is recommended that you familiarize yourself with how to equip a place for seedling germination and which LED seedling light can be used.

Why highlight seedlings

Most tomato varieties have a fairly long growing season. That is why they are planted in the middle of winter, when the duration of daylight hours is still too short. In order for such plants to fully develop, special lighting is made for seedlings.With its help, you can maintain optimal light conditions in the winter.

If you refuse additional illumination of seedlings, then certain problems may arise during cultivation. Due to the insufficient amount of light, the stems of the tomato seedlings begin to stretch. Over time, elongated internodes appear on them.

This is due to the fact that in low light, the bushes begin to slow down the process of photosynthesis. If you do not start highlighting the seedlings in a timely manner, they will start to hurt.

Duration and amount of backlighting

To figure out how to properly illuminate the seedlings, you need to determine the amount of time the bushes are illuminated. Light day for tomatoes should be at least 12-15 hours. At the same time, in winter, even those plants that are located near the south window need to be illuminated.

The lamp should turn on at about six in the morning and stay on until eight in the evening.In the daytime, the lighting can be turned off, as there should be enough sunlight. It is best to turn it off at lunchtime, when it is the brightest time of the day. In order not to think about when to turn off the light, you can purchase fixtures with automatic lighting timers installed. With their help, you can turn on the lighting for 5-7 hours, after which the lamp will turn off by itself.

Having decided on the optimal duration of additional illumination, you should figure out how much light a tomato seedling needs. After all, this also matters during cultivation. Tomatoes need illumination of 25-45 thousand lux. It is simply impossible to achieve such an amount of light without additional lamps, since in winter on the windowsill this figure is about five thousand lux.

Main recommendations

To make lighting for seedlings with your own hands, you need to familiarize yourself with the basic recommendations that will help you properly equip the lighting:

Don't do round-the-clock supplementary lighting, as there is simply no need for it. Tomatoes need a night's rest, which should last at least five hours. This is necessary so that the bushes can fully develop. During the rest, they process everything that was accumulated by the leaves during daylight hours. If the plant is not allowed to rest, then over time they will begin to experience a deficiency of nutrients. Because of this, the sheets will begin to turn brown and deform.
You need to increase daylight hours very carefully. To get more fruits, you can increase the lighting time up to 20 hours. However, you need to be prepared for the fact that quite a lot of electricity will be consumed during such cultivation.
To illuminate a square meter of tomato seedlings, lamps with a power in the range of 200-450 watts should be used. It is not recommended to place such lamps too close to the bushes, as this can lead to overheating of the plants.They need to be installed at a height of about one and a half meters above young shoots. Lights emitting cold light can be placed at a height of 50 cm.

During cultivation it is recommended to wash windows regularly, especially in winter. This can increase the amount of light in the room by 5-10%.

Lamp Selection

To organize additional lighting with your own hands, you need to choose the right lamp for tomatoes. There are several common fixtures that can be used for this.

Sodium lamps

Such additional lighting is often used when growing tomato seedlings in greenhouse conditions. The light temperature of these lamps is 2000 K. This indicator is the most optimal for tomatoes, since such light has a positive effect on the growth of young seedlings.Sodium lamps are close to the red part of the spectrum, which contributes to the support of many life processes of bushes.

Another advantage of sodium lamps is that their light is very pleasing to the human eye. After all, these lamps are used for street lighting. However, they also have certain disadvantages, which include:

Cumbersome. Such lamps are equipped with very large flasks and therefore it is not easy to install them with your own hands. Due to their large size, some growers cannot use them on their windowsills.
Difficulty of installation. Sodium lamps are definitely not suitable for people who do not want to spend too much time installing them. To connect them, you will have to use special pulse-ignition devices and a choke. Therefore, to install them, you need some experience.
Electricity consumption. Using such lamps will not save electricity, as they consume more than a hundred watts.

Fluorescent lamps

This type of lamp is also quite often used to illuminate young tomato seedlings. It is recommended to choose products whose light temperature is in the range of 4000 - 5500 K. These indicators are most suitable for tomato bushes.

The main advantage of fluorescent lamps is their economy. Therefore, they are suitable for those who do not want to spend a lot of electricity to light seedlings.

Using these lamps to illuminate seedlings is not so easy, because during lighting, their light is very scattered. To solve this problem, it is recommended to use special reflectors that will help focus the light. Most often, foil or whatman paper is white.They should be placed near containers in which tomatoes are grown.

This will help direct the light to the growing plants. Lamps should be hung above the seedlings using hooks or any other device that could be used to adjust the height. Some install them on the windowsill, but this placement is less effective.

LED lights

In the past few years, LED lamps have begun to rapidly gain popularity. Previously, they were rarely used to illuminate tomato seedlings due to the high price.

However, over time, they have become more accessible to ordinary people. The light temperature of such lamps is in the range of 2500-6000 K, which is ideal for illuminating tomatoes. Another advantage of the lamps is the variety of lighting colors. This allows you to choose the most optimal lamp for growing tomatoes.Other advantages of LED lamps include:

Small size. Due to its small size, you can install such a lamp with your own hands on almost any windowsill.
Service life. These fixtures can last for decades if handled carefully.
Energy saving. With such lighting, you can seriously save on electricity, as these lamps consume only 6 watts.
Possibility to install multiple lamps with different colors. This allows, if necessary, to enhance a particular color spectrum.

Conclusion

It is quite simple to arrange additional lighting for tomatoes with your own hands. To do this, you need to familiarize yourself with the length of daylight hours for tomato seedlings and with the lamps that can be used for this. You also need to decide which light is best for the tomato.