25 years ago: Hydroponic tomatoes gaining in popularity

From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for June 11, 1988:

  • A front-page article today described the increasingly popular “hydroponic tomatoes,” which are fully ripened in greenhouses. The ripe red tomatoes from local gardens were still a month or more away, but there were at least two commercial growers of the hydroponic type in the Lawrence area. Brad Elder had been growing them in his greenhouse near Linwood for about 2 1/2 years, and John and Karen Pendleton had started about 1 1/2 years ago. Elder was growing his plants in rock wool insulation, while the Pendletons were using a peat moss mixture. Elder explained that these growing mediums made it easier to control the supply of nutrients to the plants and also prevented soil-borne diseases. The Pendletons, who were raising about 1,200 tomato plants a year in their greenhouse, said that each plant could produce five to seven pounds of tomatoes per year for Lawrence-area consumption. “You can’t ship a ripe tomato,” Karen Pendleton said. “You need a local market.”
  • Meanwhile, at local movie theaters, the summer crop of sequels was being harvested. “Poltergeist III,” “Crocodile Dundee II,” and “Rambo III” were among the offerings this week. Movie-goers could also see Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin in “Big Business,” Tom Hanks in “Big,” and Sean Connery and Mark Harmon in “The Presidio.”