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My mother ayed tomatoes in the spring when it was still cool. She covered them with clear plastic bags as she always has. But she needed one more bag so she use
by dghughes 6y ago
My mother ayed tomatoes in the spring when it was still cool. She covered them with clear plastic bags as she always has. But she needed one more bag so she used a blue recycling bag on one of the plants. Blue tinged really it's almost clear.
I pointed out to her one of the plants had yellow leaves. It was the plant with the blue bag.
Later in the summer the blue bag plant produced fruit just like the other plants. But the bottom of each tomato was disfigured and looked rotten but it was dry to the touch. It's blossom rot due to low calcium. I have to wonder if it was the blue bag or lack of/too much water. All the plants got the same nutrients only this one had the blue bag. It got red light and green light which plants don't need but no blue light.
Plants are seemingly very sensitive to sunlight quality. I'm sure the solar panels are clear but even a slight colour blockage may be harmful.
It was an interesting result.
- jws 6y agoThe ratio of red and blue light controls various functions of a plant. In the context of aquarium plants, more red light makes them get tall and leggy, more blue light makes them be compact and bushy. https://gpnmag.com/article/effects-of-blue-light-on-plants/ https://gpnmag.com/article/effects-of-blue-light-on-plants/ talks a bit about it in the context of greenhouses and tomatoes, the picture in the middle shows 6 plants grown with wildly different red/blue ratios. If the balance of the light coming through your solar panel was problematic, you could always filter out some of the overabundant light.
- ballenf 6y agoIs that how they know how close to the surface of the water they are?
- carvink 6y agoThat slight colour blockage, or the tint those solar panels have is helpful. There are two reasons. One, plants grow better under red light. Red light has the highest efficiency for photosynthesis in plants, that why LED grow lights are tuned for certain wavelengths. Plants use blue light to know what direction to grow. And for a certain category of tints or dyes that are fluorescent, additional red light. Luminescent solar collectors have an embedded dye with molecules that fluoresce, that give off even more red light. Example: http://www.soliculture.com/lumo-technology/ http://www.soliculture.com/lumo-technology/
- UnpossibleJim 6y agoIs that why indoor LED growing lights have that purple-ish tint to them? I never knew that. I knew about the red, but never the blue. You're awesome. Thanks so much.
- carvink 6y agoHere's my source material: https://youtu.be/Y1nlQ6bGX4c?t=4018 https://youtu.be/Y1nlQ6bGX4c?t=4018
- dawnerd 6y agoAll of my plants this year have gotten blossom rot, pretty much too late to fix too. No tomatoes for me this year.
- asquabventured 6y agoBlossom end rot is caused by calcium deficiency. Easiest solution for this is to just crush up egg shells and put them in and on top of the soil. I save my eggshells in a jar in the fridge for a few months prior to planting. It may be too late for this year but should work wonders for you in the future.
- remarkEon 6y agoSeconded, I would do this with my mom each year in her garden when I was a kid. Works 100% of the time, and it's a non-invasive way to address the issue.
- soperj 6y agoNot always. Sometimes it's because it's too hot at night.
- hombre_fatal 6y agoI had deformed cumquats from my tree until I started blending egg shells in the spice blender and watering them into the tree base.
- chris_engel 6y agoA blue plastic bag filters most of the spectrum EXCEPT the blue part. Not the other way around. Simple proof: look inside, the light is blue. I guess the biggest problem for the plant here is that especially the infrared part of the sunlight is very important. Yellow leaves usually mean not enough light. Especially tomatoes need lots of sunlight.
- i-am-curious 6y agoNope. If the bag looks blue that means it's scattering away blue light while letting the rest through. So it's filtering (out) the blue. OP is right.
- nostoc 6y agoNo, a blue filter, like a blue plastic bag would let blue pass and absorbe the other colors. That's why if you shine a white light through a blue filter, things look blue on the other side. Now, some of the blue light is scattered away, and that's why you see the plastic bag itself as blue.
- Nition 6y agoHang on, so if you shine a white light through a blue filter, the light on the other side looks blue. And the filter itself still looks blue on both sides. But then, where did the non-blue component of the light go?
- simcop2387 6y agoConverted to heat. What's going on here is a discussion about transmission and transmittance. [1] [1] https://www.swiftglass.com/blog/key-differences-transmission-transmittance-apply-application/ https://www.swiftglass.com/blog/key-differences-transmission...
- lgats 6y agoImagine looking at this blue-transparent bag with a red light, it will appear more opaque.