Whilst touring Disney’s Land pavilion at EPCOT, I took the “Behind the Seeds” tour of the greenhouses. One of the more impressive of the plants being grown was this single tomato “tree” with tens of thousands of tomatoes growing on it. The guide did tell us that this particular plant came from seeds attained from China. And she told us the record at Disney was 36,000 tomatoes from one tree – but that was not the world record. That was held by a grower in China.
These are grown with hydroponics, using a substrate for root growth, but being constantly fed mineral nutrient solutions, rather than depend on soil. The guide gave each of us on the tour a tomato to taste. They tasted like, well, like tomatoes.
The greatest advantage to growing hydroponically is not quality, or even space saving, it’s the increased rate of growth that makes it worthwhile. The tomatoes harvested here in the greenhouses get used at the restaurants throughout Disney World.
