Tomato

Cherry Tomatoes.

Small fruit, high count, and labour as the deciding cost.

Start with the saleable product

The fruit is small.
The specification is not.

A loose snack pack and a cherry truss follow different paths through the greenhouse. Select the product first, then assess the picking and packing work it requires.

Fruit weight and uniformity

Agree the individual-fruit grade and the permitted variation within a pack.

Flavour and condition

Eating quality, firmness and intact skin belong in the same acceptance specification.

The harvest format

Loose fruit and intact trusses need different picking, grading and handling routines.

Cultivation choices

How to cultivate.

Start at the roots, then connect crop support and water management to the intended fruit and harvest format.

Soil or substrate

Choose the root environment, then plan irrigation, drainage and crop access around it. The cultivation route must suit the site and crop duration.

Crop support & irrigation

High-wire support, working height and water delivery must support the intended crop load and daily routine.

Climate & season

A crop plan for
the actual conditions.

Location, season and cultivar guide the schedule. A greenhouse and its technology must be designed around those conditions.

Match the cultivar to the season

Review the desired product quality under the available light and intended production conditions.

Keep development and quality aligned

Crop load, water supply and climate need to be considered together rather than tuned to a generic cherry recipe.

Make the supply plan realistic

Planting capacity cannot predict a weekly picking volume. Use a reviewed harvest profile and grade assumptions.

Cultivation & daily work

Make the growing
routine workable.

The system should support the crop and the people caring for it. Review access, handling and cleaning as part of the layout.

Count the handling steps

Map picking, checking, sorting and pack filling for the selected format.

Check the whole truss

For on-vine harvest, include attachment, uniformity and truss presentation in the crop plan.

Size the packing operation

Plan workstations and internal transport from a reviewed harvest profile and measured work rates.

Eaten raw, priced on flavour

Cherry tomato is eaten raw and whole, usually out of the hand rather than out of a pan. Nothing is peeled off and nothing is cooked away, so what the fruit carries when it is cut from the plant is what reaches the person eating it.

Flavour is where that shows first. Sugar and acid are built in the fruit while it is still attached, and they stop being built the moment it is picked. Fruit harvested early enough to survive a journey colours on the way and still tastes of the day it left. The class is priced on flavour, which makes the harvest date part of the price.

A short chain also keeps more of the crop saleable. Cherry is sold by the punnet, and one soft fruit takes the pack with it, so days spent in transit are days the pack can be lost. Picking at colour and delivering the same week protects the eating quality and the pack together.

Nutrition facts

Tomato, red, ripe, raw — year round average

Per 100 g

Energy: 18 kcal
Fat: 0.2 g
Carbohydrate: 3.89 g
Sugars: 2.63 g
Fiber: 1.2 g
Protein: 0.88 g
Sodium: 5 mg
Potassium: 237 mg
Vitamin C: 13.7 mg

Source: USDA FoodData Central, FDC 170457

Cherry tomato is a separate market class from truss, sold both on the vine and loose, and priced on flavour and appearance rather than on weight alone. The fruit is small, so a greenhouse produces a very large number of them for a given tonnage, and picking and packing become the dominant variable cost. That is the crop’s central commercial tension: the premium is real, and so is the labour required to capture it.

What the crop needs

The plant is long-cycle on substrate and high wire, like truss tomato, but it carries a much larger number of smaller fruit. Plant load management is therefore the daily craft, and the balance between vegetative and generative growth has to be held tightly to keep sugar levels and fruit size consistent across a long season. Climate and irrigation strategy are directed at flavour and shelf life as much as at total mass.

What the greenhouse has to do

Cherry tomato asks the greenhouse for consistency and for flow. The structure and the climate envelope are shared with truss tomato; what changes is the number of fruit moving through the building every week. Path width, internal transport and the size of the packing area are part of the greenhouse design rather than something fitted around it once the crop is in.

Climate is steered at quality. Screening and heating hold the day-to-night rhythm that keeps sugars and fruit size even across a long season, and drip supply with drain recirculation keeps the root zone from swinging. Where the market window reaches into the low-light months, supplemental light and the electrical service to carry it belong in the brief from the start, because both change the heating design with them.

DutchGreenhouses® specifies the structure, climate, screening and irrigation around the cherry tomato crop, its sale form and the local climate, so flavour and count hold across the season. Get in touch to plan a tomato greenhouse for your market.

Crop data Cherry tomatoes

Day climate^1,2,3,4,5

Air temperature: 19–23 °C
Relative humidity: 82–88 %
Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD): 0.28–0.45 kPa
Daily light integral: 18–35 mol/m²/d
Photoperiod: 16–18 h
CO₂ concentration: 600–800 ppm
Root-zone temperature: 17–20 °C

Night climate^1,3,6,7

Air temperature: 17–20 °C
Relative humidity: 85–90 %
Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD): 0.2–0.34 kPa
CO₂ concentration: 420–500 ppm
Root-zone temperature: 17–20 °C

Irrigation and root zone^6,8,9,10

Supply EC: 3.5–4.5 mS/cm
Supply pH: 5–6.2 pH
Drain fraction: 20–30 %
Daily water use: 1–5 L/m²/d
Dosing capacity: ≈ 2 L/m²/h

Sources (10)

Kas als Energiebron, 2020 — Lit tomato crop timing and lighting E015
Kas als Energiebron Academy Tomaat, 2023 — Radiation–temperature ratio (RTR) E016
Kas als Energiebron / Delphy, 2022 — Energy-efficient LED temperature and humidity E017
Kas als Energiebron / WUR, 2014 — Tomato CO₂ operating range E023
Kas als Energiebron project 20184 — Modern full-LED tomato project configuration E029
Kas als Energiebron / Delphy, 2025 — Humidity, EC and transpiration under LED E018
WUR / del Amor & Marcelis, 2005 — Humidity response and nutrient uptake E022
Proefstation voor Tuinbouw onder Glas / WUR, 1994 — Closed-system tomato nutrient solution E021
WUR / Li, Stanghellini & Challa, 2001 — Tomato EC × transpiration response E027
Kas als Energiebron, 2023 — Nutrition under lower transpiration E028

Reference values, not a specification. Setpoints are calculated per greenhouse, crop and location.

Questions

Cherry tomato, asked and answered

Is cherry tomato more profitable than truss?

It carries a higher price per kilogram and a higher labour cost per kilogram. Which wins depends on local labour rates, the degree of harvest and pack automation, and the premium the market actually pays.

What changes in the greenhouse when the crop is cherry rather than truss?

Mostly the handling. The structure and the climate envelope are shared; the difference is the number of fruit moving through the greenhouse every week, which sets path width, internal transport and the size of the packing area.

What decides cherry tomato flavour?

Cultivar sets the ceiling; climate, irrigation strategy and plant load decide how close a crop gets to it. Flavour is steered before harvest, not after.