Influence of Water Stress Levels on the Yield and Lycopene Content of Tomato

Sándor Takács,Hussein G. Daood,Zoltán Pék,Gábor Palotás,Péter Szuvandzsiev,Lajos Helyes,Dániel Csányi

doi:10.3390/w12082165

Abstract

Good water supply practice provides benefits such as water and energy conservation but also alters the quality of yield. These effects of irrigation on yield quantity and quality are widely researched in the case of many plants. In tomato it can affect the soluble solids content positively together with a slight reduction in yield quantity as confirmed by many studies. There are results in the literature regarding its effect on carotenoid composition and lycopene content as well, but the effect on lycopene isomers has not been revealed yet. In this study, we investigated how different water supply levels affect yield quantity and quality, focusing on lycopene components. A two-year open field irrigation experiment with a center pivot capable of variable rate irrigation was conducted on processing tomato. The water supply levels were 100%, 75%, and 50% of ETc (crop evapotranspiration) until the beginning of the ripening stage, calculated by AquaCrop compared to control without regular irrigation. The results suggested that 75% of ETc supplied till the beginning of ripening, was a balanced water supply level regarding yield quantity, soluble solids content and lycopene concentration and yields, such as higher concentration and ratio to total carotenoids. The evaluation of cis-lycopene concentration and ratio to all-trans did not show clear results in the two years.

Highlights

Climate change scenarios predict restriction in water supply in the near future, but large parts of the world already suffer from the deficiency of water in agriculture or other fields of life
Climate conditions have a strong influence on the irrigation water needs and the stress levels of plants, we wanted to provide a detailed picture of the two seasons
Ouryield findings do not consistently water supplyinwas in cis-isomers the I75 and I100 treatments

Summary

Introduction

Climate change scenarios predict restriction in water supply in the near future, but large parts of the world already suffer from the deficiency of water in agriculture or other fields of life. These areas largely overlap with the areas of main processing tomato producing countries [1]. The processing tomato industry requires material with favorable dry matter content in order to keep the cost of water evaporation as low as possible during the preparation of the pulp. The main fraction of this dry matter content in tomato fruits comprise the soluble solids content (SSC), expressed

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