Abstract
The tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is one of the most consumed horticultural crops around the world and that most produced in greenhouses. It is of interest, then, to develop production systems that increase yield and quality. The objective of this study was to evaluate a production system of tomato plants pruned to a single stem leaving only three clusters per plant. The system consists of arranging plants in sets of five rows of rectangular containers oriented north-south, and located at different heights to form a double stair-like canopy. The studied factors in morphological and yield traits were two different container heights between contiguous rows (40 and 50 cm), and three population densities (25, 30 and 35 plants·m-2). Additionally, the effect of the position of each row was evaluated for the same variables. A complete random design with arrangement in split plots with six treatments and five replications was used; the experimental unit was 20 plants. The plots corresponded to different heights among contiguous rows of plants and the subplots to population densities. The highest number of fruits·m-2 (342) was obtained with the density of 35 plants·m-2 and the lowest (274) with 25 plants·m-2, and the tallest plant height (135 cm) was registered with level differences of 40 cm between contiguous rows. The yield per surface unit did not differ for any of the two studied factors. The plants located in the upper row had higher yield (1342 g·plant-1), smaller plant height (120 cm) and larger stem diameter (1.44 cm) than those grown in the lower and intermediate rows.
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