Evaluation of Some Growth Media Mixtures for Tomato Transplants Production

Abstract

The seedlings growth media plays a very important role in factory seedling cultivation. High quality growth media could provide healthy and high-quality seedlings for high yield of vegetable crops. This study has attempted to use some agricultural organic wastes and mineral substrates, with differ rent ratios, as growth media mixtures. to select the best growth media, which are suitable for the growth of tomato seedlings (Solanum lycopersicum). Eighteen different (growth media) mixtures were prepared from mineral fraction (sand and vermiculite) and agricultural organic wastes Palme seeds, rice straw and coffee grounds) then compared. Seven growth media mixtures were selected based on the best growth performance of tomato seedlings. The experiment was arranged in a completely randomized design with 7 treatments and 3 replications with 5 observations per treatment. After the seedlings growth period, seedlings were harvested to determine the effect of the growth media mixtures on the different growth parameters (plant dry matter and leaf area) and (percentage of seedlings, fresh weight and chlorophyll content). The Highest seed emergency rate was achieved with T 13, T14 and T 15 mixtures and the next ones were obtained with T2 mixture. The emergency rates of all treatments were higher than control, and the lowest one was control., The results showed that SPAD value (leaf chlorophyll content) of T2 and 15 mixture was biggest for 47.18 and 46.2 followed insignificantly by T 5, T13 and T4, Which were 45.2, 43.55 and 41.96 and value for control was smallest which was 38.33 without significant difference than T 13, T14 and T4. It could be generally noticed that for fresh weight and leaf area characters, mixture of T15 (the commercial media with an addition 15% of date palm seed ground) had the highest values of plant growth and exceed the rest of the formulas followed by a mixture of T13 with a significant difference. Concerning, dry matter content the results indicated that T4, T5 and T2 of growth media mixtures achieved the highest values 11.78, 11.53 and 11.32 % for dry matter without significant difference. On the other hand, the control media mixture gave the lowest value of dry matter of the tomato transplants.