Abstract
Precision horticulture is fundamental to ensure high quality production with a minimal environmental footprint. It offers the possibility to manage climatic and fertilization inputs closer to the plant needs. In practice, there is a tendency to over-fertilize, as nitrogen limitation can decrease photosynthesis and consequently fruit yield, but also because nutrient recycling does not lead to any substantial costs increase, thus ignoring the influence of nitrogen input on the balance between growth and metabolism. Nitrogen recommendation for tomato greenhouse production on rockwool is 16mM, even it is well established that only 50% of nitrogen amount is really absorbed by plants. This study compares the usual practice (16 mM) to a nitrogen supply to meet plant’s needs (5 mM). We analyzed plant growth and development, yield, leaf photosynthetic activity and fruit quality (sugars, acids, vitamin C,) over the entire crop period (December to October). Over-fertilization favoured the accumulation of nitrogen in leaves and stem but yield, leaf photosynthetic activity and plant architecture were not significantly improved. In addition, it decreased the quality of the tomatoes as the sugar:acid ratio decreased dramatically in the pericarp, whereas the locular gel composition remained similar. A reduction of the nitrogen supply is one solution to improve tomato quality without any reduction of yield in greenhouse. These data have to be incorporated in tomato fertigation management to define a new standard based on overall quality of tomato fruit and low environmental footprint.
Highlights
Horticulture is facing new challenges linked to climate change combined with societal expectations on environmental impact and quality of products
Leaf length and width were significantly higher under high nitrogen supply for replicate 1, not for replicate 2
Nitrogen management adapted to the actual needs of the plant should reduce the nitrogen input to a soilless tomato crop by three times compared to current grower practices
Summary
Horticulture is facing new challenges linked to climate change combined with societal expectations on environmental impact and quality of products. Greenhouse horticulture is spreading widely all over the world as a solution to meet with these expectations. Northern countries settled on soilless production systems in heated glasshouses, increasing performance and competitiveness, but the profitability depends mainly on the good management of greenhouse inputs (energy, water, nutrients, CO2 , labor). In this context, greenhouse management has to be finely tuned to meet real-time plant requirements.
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