Abstract
India produces around 19.0 million tonnes of tomatoes annually, which is insufficient to meet the ever-increasing demand. A big gap of tomato productivity (72.14 t ha–1) between India (24.66 t ha–1) and the USA (96.8 t ha–1) exist, which can be bridged by integrating trellis system of shoot training, shoot pruning, liquid fertilizers, farmyard manure, and mulching technologies. Therefore, the present experiment was conducted on tomato (cv. Himsona) during 2019–2020 at farmers' fields to improve tomato productivity and quality. There were five treatments laid in a randomized block design (RBD) with three replications; T1 [Farmer practice on the flatbed with RDF @ N120:P60:K60 + FYM @6.0 t ha−1 without mulch], T2 [T1 + Polythene mulch (50 microns)], T3 [Tomato plants grown on the raised bed with polythene mulch + FYM @ 8.0 t ha−1 + Single shoot trellis system + Side shoot pruning + Liquid Fertilizer (LF1—N19:P19:K19) @ 2.0 g l–1 for vegetative growth + Liquid Fertilizer (LF2—N0: P52: K34) @ 1.5 g l–1 for improving fruit quality], T4 [Tomato plants grown on the raised bed with polythene mulch + FYM @ 8.0 t ha−1 + Single shoot trellis system + Side shoot pruning + LF1 @ 4.0 g l–1 + LF2 @ 3.0 g l–1], and T5 [Tomato plants grown on the raised bed with polythene mulch + FYM @ 10.0 t ha−1 + Single shoot trellis system + Side shoot pruning + LF1 @ 6.0 g l–1 + LF2 @ 4.5 g l–1]. The results revealed that tomato plant grown on the raised beds with polythene mulch, shoot pruning, trellising, liquid fertilizers, and farmyard manure (i.e., T5) recorded higher shoot length, dry matter content, and tomato productivity by 20.75–141.21, 18.79–169.4, and 18.89–160.87% as compared to T4–T1 treatments, respectively. The T5 treatment also recorded the highest water productivity (28.39 kg m–3), improved fruit qualities, net return (10,751 USD ha–1), benefit–cost ratio (3.08), microbial population, and enzymatic activities as compared to other treatments. The ranking and hierarchical clustering of treatments confirmed the superiority of the T5 treatment over all other treatments.
Highlights
The tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.), a member of the family Solanaceae is one of the world’s most consumed vegetable crops
Tomato productivity of India has been realized as high as 170.0 tha–1 in polyhouse condition[3] which indicate that the potential of tomato productivity under protected cultivation can be harnessed outside the polyhouse/net house at farmers field, which will improve the tomato productivity and increase national productivity (> 100 t ha–1) in open c onditions[4] by the plant architecture modification such as single shoot training, aside shoot pruning, mulching, and application of liquid fertilizers in India
The maximum shoot length (3.20 m) and dry matter content (0.584 kg p lant–1) were observed in tomato plant grown on the raised bed, polythene mulch, regular pruning, trellising, and application of liquid fertilizers (T5 treatment) followed by T4 (2.67 and 0.491), T3 (2.49 and 0.435), T2 (1.43 and 0.287) and lowest (1.33 m and 0.217 kg p lant–1) under T 1 treatment in case of tomato
Summary
The tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.), a member of the family Solanaceae is one of the world’s most consumed vegetable crops. The single shoot trellis system of training aims to support plant growth in a desired shape/direction, which provides a better opportunity to harvest solar energy vertically to increase flowering and fruit yield in tomatoes It allows efficient air circulation, easy to practice cultural operations viz; weeding, hoeing, watering, harvesting, inspection of the field, prevent lodging, fruit rotting, liquid fertilizers application, etc[5,6]. This offers an opportunity to develop a training system with poles, wire, and threads to train the plants in a required shape into a trellis system of training, which will improve the duration of the flowering and fruiting total length of the main tomato shoot in addition to a stable support. It is an alternative to soil nutrient management and can be a better option for commercial use in horticulture as it provides nutrients as per the needs of crop[11,12]
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