Thread: Growing Tomatoes in Thailand

Originally Posted by Happy Dave

Where is that MID, would'nt mind having a look sometime

LHS of the ring road near the right hander before you climb up the hill to Macro .
, if you are coming from BoPhut .

Originally Posted by nigelandjan

Anto I dont know if your gonna keep them toms in the same place through to fruit ,, but I would have thought unless your gonna train them up the roof your gonna run out of room for Ailsa Craigs ,, mabe your gonna only let about 3 flowers sets on each before stopping it. Mabe worth trying Sunsetters if you can get the seeds ,, if you want any seeds from the Uk I can bring for you in Feb 2012 no worries mate .
Its bloody ironic how people in the UK spend fortunes on greenhouses to ripen toms and over in your garden difficulties because of over heating . Ive learnt something on here today about the toms not growing over 30 degrees ,,,,,amazing Thailand !

Yes ,i am going to train them across the roof .Hope to get at least 6 trusses from each plant .At the moment they are slow to flower .One plant is nearly 18 ins with no flowers yet .
As for seeds i intend trying the seed from the fruit of the Dutch growers in Chiang Mai .( if they are not F1 hybrids ,they should take through ) .Will also try to get the seed mentioned before from northern Australia .

Good they will look the biz being able to walk in there and reach up and pick em lovely ,,,,,,,,hope you can post some pics then. Gues your gonna liquid feed them once the flowers are set Be interesting to know how they pollinate in there as its normally done by wind outside or insects inside so i guess youll have a few of them or otherwise it will be hand pollination ( I have done that in my conservatory at home )
If you can get hold of Sunsetter seeds they are ideal if they will grow there producing lots of sweet small fruits from a bushy plant and the big bonus with them is they are very easy to re-grow from the seeds they produce ,,,,,,,,,, any way mate the offers still there if you want some in Feb 2012 when we come back over I can bring you some .
Happy growing look forward to some more pics

Originally Posted by Happyman

For the last 2 years no problem - sprays them with a tobacco

you just steep the tobacco leaves in water then use that to spray?

The main reason tomatoes dont grow well in Thai land is the prevalence of a disease called "bacterial wilt". Look it up on Google. There is no cure and it is endemic in most areas. A couple of varieties are resistant, but of poor eating quality. All cooler climate varieties are susceptible.

The disease is harboured by many native weeds and certain other crops, and can remain present in the ground for a long time. Again, there is no cure.

Occasionally, a farang will be lucky enough to stumble into an area where the bacteria is not established and tomatoes will grow profusely. Its not through any special management or growing techniques, but rather that he just stumbled onto some uninfected soil.

The area in which I live in northern Australia is badly affected with this disease.
Yet there are isolated pockets within the community that are not affected.
I have been trying to grow tomatoes for years without much success. Along comes a newcomer friend of mine only a kilometer away and grows a lush crop of beautiful Roma tomatoes straight up with very little preparation.

It aint the breed of tomato, it aint the ground preparation, it aint the time of year you plant, it aint if you got a green thumb or not. It all depends if you got that bacterial wilt bacteria in your ground or not. And most places in Thailand have it.

Originally Posted by Panda

"bacterial wilt"

Christ I hope that dont transfer to the nether regions .

No seriously thanks for that info thats most interesting ,, if thats the case then what I shall do in the future is make loads of my own compost as I do now , which by the way looks like fine topsoil after 12 months and grow in raised beds as i do in the UK ,cheers happy growing

Originally Posted by nigelandjan

Originally Posted by Panda

"bacterial wilt"

Christ I hope that dont transfer to the nether regions .

No seriously thanks for that info thats most interesting ,, if thats the case then what I shall do in the future is make loads of my own compost as I do now , which by the way looks like fine topsoil after 12 months and grow in raised beds as i do in the UK ,cheers happy growing

If the bacteria that causes the wilt is in your soil it will be difficult avoid contamination. I have even gone so far as to sterilize the potting mix in the oven and plant in pots up on bricks. But the disease still finds its way into the plants somehow. A neighbour reckons ants, small lizards and other crawling creatures spread it around.

Right at the moment I am trying "Apollo" strain tomatoes that are supposed to be bacterial wilt resistant. But its the wet season here now. Hot, wet and humid. Not the best for tomatoes. Still the plants are well established now and are not showing any signs of disease. Unfortunately the flowers have mostly come to nothing with only one tomato produced so far.

Well Panda what I was meaning by making my own compost as I do in the UK I use no soil at all ,, I have learned a way of layering all the veg waste , leaf waste/ lawn waste , + shredded paper over an 18 month period ( I have 2 heaps on the go at anytime ) now this turns out what can only be descibed as looking just like pure black soil ,, so that is just what I use in its pure form .
However ,,,,,,, if what your describing is how it is in Thailand what that sounds like mate is some kind of airborne disease in which case I would imagine that is going to be very difficult to compete with unless as some other posters are suggesting a F1 variety to compete with it .
Makes me wonder where they grow those mini cherry / plum shape toms for the som tum ,, I did grow some of those from seed in the UK this year most succesfully however they came out that awfull pale red colour as in Thai and were absolutley tasteless , one thing I did note was the black around main stem of the plant ,, these all went to the local rubbish dump after and not into my compost bins , and I wont be growing them this year. Happy gardening

"mini cherry / plum shape toms"

imho are a throwback from the genetically engineered ones.....

example....if you have been eating tomatoes and then bury your next days excrement in little plots ..7 times out of ten you will get the little toms growing out of where you have buried... they are feral,...deisese resistant and if you leave them alone (dont spray) the bugs and thngs have no effect on them...use pig shit not chook poo to get squat healthy plants

Originally Posted by wombat

"mini cherry / plum shape toms"

imho are a throwback from the genetically engineered ones.....

example....if you have been eating tomatoes and then bury your next days excrement in little plots ..7 times out of ten you will get the little toms growing out of where you have buried... they are feral,...deisese resistant and if you leave them alone (dont spray) the bugs and thngs have no effect on them...use pig shit not chook poo to get squat healthy plants

The hybrid varieties dont reproduce true to form from seed and can throw any variation of their genetic ancestry on either side. Some hybrids are the result of cross breeding with wild or semi-wild varieties to enhance certain genetic traits such as disease resistance.

The older established varieties have been bred to be self pollinating and therefore will always reproduce true to form from seed because they have a very narrow gene pool due to many generations of inbreeding.

Originally Posted by nigelandjan

Well Panda what I was meaning by making my own compost as I do in the UK I use no soil at all ,, I have learned a way of layering all the veg waste , leaf waste/ lawn waste , + shredded paper over an 18 month period ( I have 2 heaps on the go at anytime ) now this turns out what can only be descibed as looking just like pure black soil ,, so that is just what I use in its pure form .
However ,,,,,,, if what your describing is how it is in Thailand what that sounds like mate is some kind of airborne disease in which case I would imagine that is going to be very difficult to compete with unless as some other posters are suggesting a F1 variety to compete with it .
Makes me wonder where they grow those mini cherry / plum shape toms for the som tum ,, I did grow some of those from seed in the UK this year most succesfully however they came out that awfull pale red colour as in Thai and were absolutley tasteless , one thing I did note was the black around main stem of the plant ,, these all went to the local rubbish dump after and not into my compost bins , and I wont be growing them this year. Happy gardening

Bacterial wilt is a tropical disease. So no doubt the cooler areas would be better for growing tomatoes.

Grafting onto rootstock of another related disease resistant species is an option. I did try it about a year back, but got busy with work and it all fell apart. And I am not talking about other breeds of tomatoes for rootstock. Tomatoes are related to a wide range of other plants that will accept a graft.

..just an update .The first sign of flower trusses are forming .Plants still healthy if a little thin .

Sound like some good organic liquid feed called for

Originally Posted by anto2

..just an update .The first sign of flower trusses are forming .Plants still healthy if a little thin .

The wilt usually hits the plants as the first fruits are about the size of a marble. They start wilting from the top down as the roots and lower stem rot away preventing adequate water uptake. Just one or two plants affected in the heat of the day at first. Then over the next few days all of them, until they all die.

If you can get to the stage of producing mature fruit, you have got it made.

The only two plants I have had that have survived the disease grew long and spindly like a vine rather than a bush. One grew to be several meters long and lived for over a year. It was a scraggly looking thing and ended up producing about one delicious tomato a week. Probably some kind of a throwback.

These "Apollo" breed tomatoes I am trying now are supposed to be resistant to the bacterial wilt. They too are growing long and spindly, but the flowers are not setting fruit. Could be because we have had a lot of rain here over the past several weeks.

Good luck. Thanks for the progress reports.

Update on my "Apollo" wilt resistant tomato plants.

The upper most tip have started wilting in the daytime heat.
I know from experience that it will only be a couple more days before the whole plant is dead.

Though this strain has done far better than any other I have tried it has still succumbed to the disease. But, to be fair, it was probably the worst possible time to plant them with high humidity, lots of rain, temperatures consistently well over 30 C in the day, and an area known to be heavily infected.

Will try this breed again in the cooler dry months here around end May to July.

^ oh dear , its gutting to get that far

Update my plants have now a second truss of flowers and are starting to spread across under the roof .Still healthy .The cuckumber plants were wilting mid day so have had to put on some shading over the roof .

Hi Yall
About that slug problem. I live in the USA mid-south region,and our slugs are total drunks. Here we put out a low sloped saucer of beer at night and our slugs get sloshed and drown in their pool of beer. It really works,set out to or three saucers in a slimed area and open the bar. Cheers

Originally Posted by Mid

Originally Posted by Happy Dave

Where is that MID, would'nt mind having a look sometime

LHS of the ring road near the right hander before you climb up the hill to Macro .
, if you are coming from BoPhut .

Thanks Mid, i know where that is, just about where all the water is always over the road. I will be coming from Maenam. Amazing what you miss when you are not looking. !

Originally Posted by robo122354

Hi Yall
About that slug problem. I live in the USA mid-south region,and our slugs are total drunks. Here we put out a low sloped saucer of beer at night and our slugs get sloshed and drown in their pool of beer. It really works,set out to or three saucers in a slimed area and open the bar. Cheers

Yes that is a good idea and is used in the UK but in a jam jar in the ground like a golf hole .

Some good news. My (2) plants are holding on! We had a couple of weeks of heavily overcast days with rain and no direct sunlight to stress the plants. Now the sun is out again and no sign of wilting yet. But still no sign of fruit forming from the flowers. I have got only one tomato from these plants so far and nil new fruit forming. This one tomato looked healthy but split open on ripening and went rotten before it could be eaten. Maybe will have to try assisted pollination with a small paintbrush?

if you have flowers and no fruit later, it probably is a pollination problem

a little brush is a nice happy ending for the plant

Originally Posted by Mid

Originally Posted by anto2

Growing Tomatoes in Thailand

Like Marmers said , they don't

and as for the local ones ,

well the less said about them the better .

I have a friend that has set up a hydrophonic garden in Thailand that grows some nice tomatoes.