Effects of integrated environmental factors and modelling the growth and development of tomato in greenhouse cultivation

Abstract

Effects of environmental factors on the growth and development of tomato plants in greenhouse cultivation were investigated. Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill. cultivar “Momotaro”) was cultivated by solution culture system using solid medium from November 2017 to May 2018 in the glass greenhouse with 66.43 m2 of floor area. Environmental factors including temperature, humidity, light intensity and CO2 concentration in the greenhouse were recorded every 10-minute during cultivation. Mathematical models were developed to fit the data to determine the relationship between environmental factors and the growing parameters of tomato plants. It was observed that the percentage of flowers translated into fruits and clusters tended to decrease in upper clusters on tomato plants. Fruit yield was estimated at about 31 kg/m2 and 5.56 kg/plant, and fruit weight varied among plants from 3.73 kg to 7.34 kg. Mathematical modelling using measured indices represented moderate significant relationships between start ripening date (SRD), harvesting date (HD), and cumulative heat unit (CHU), and cumulative light intensity (CLI) as R2 = 0.67, between cluster occurrence and CHU as R2 = 0.69.