Effect of Shoot Pruning and Flower Thinning on Quality and Quantity of Semi-Determinate Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.)

Abdolali HESAMI,Saadat SARIKHANI KHORAMI,Seyedeh Samaneh HOSSEINI

doi:10.15835/nsb417179

Abdolali HESAMI, Saadat SARIKHANI KHORAMI + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.15835/nsb417179

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Abstract

There are many constraints of space, light and availability of fruits to harvest in tomatoes greenhouse. Therefore, two experiments were carried out to determine the effect of shoot pruning and flower thinning on quality and quantity of fruits of semi-determinate tomato in a greenhouse of the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Persian Gulf University of Bushehr. Experimental design was randomized complete block designs in which the effect of shoot pruning (single branch pruning, double branch pruning, pyramidal pruning and control) or flower thinning (Cluster with 4 and 5 remained flowers and control) were studied separately. Results showed that, leaf area and plants yield were higher in treatments which were pruned than control. Yields from pyramidal pruning and cluster thinning with 5 remaining flowers were significantly higher than other treatments. On the other hand, qualitative study identified that pyramidal pruning increases vitamin C in fruits, but had no significant effect on total soluble solids.

Highlights

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is one of the most important vegetables in terms of economic and nutritional value especially vitamin C content (Kanyomeka and Shivute, 2005)
Shoot pruning and flower thinning was performed by hand while old leaves were clipped by disinfected scissors
It is worth mentioning that there was no significant difference between control treatment and pyramidal pruning, because rate of pruning in pyramidal pruning is low

Summary

Introduction

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is one of the most important vegetables in terms of economic and nutritional value especially vitamin C content (Kanyomeka and Shivute, 2005). Several manual operations are performed very steadily: removing the axillary shoots and training the main stem keeps the crop in optimal conditions as regards light interception; deleafing consists in removing the oldest leaves, which are no longer photosynthetically active, in order to avoid plant diseases and facilitate harvesting; truss pruning aims at adapting the fruit load to assimilate production, in order to improve fruit grade and quality (Navarrete and Jeannequin, 2000). Pruning increases costs in tomato production, it improves light penetration inside the plant canopy and increases photosynthesis efficiency and so fruit yield (Ambroszczyk et al, 2008; Mbinga, 1983; Rajewar and Patil, 1979). Vegetative growth has direct relation with leaf area, dry matter and stem diameter; it has negative correlation with fruit yield (Hall, 1983; Hartmann, 1977; Navarrete et al, 1997)

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