Yield and fruit quality of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) cultivars established at different planting bed size and growing substrates

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This study was carried out to investigate the yield and fruit quality of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) cultivars using different plant bed width and growing substrates in Hwacheon Farm, 2011. Transplants of tomato cultivars ‘Campari’, ‘Temptation’, ‘Annamay’, and ‘Adoration’ were planted at 20 cm, 40 cm, 60 cm, and 80 cm bed width and same cultivars were grown at cocopeat, rockwool and masato in early July, 2011 in a greenhouse. Planting bed size significantly affected the fruit number, marketable fruit number (%) and weight (g), and total yield (g) per plant. Plants grown at 60 cm bed width yielded the highest fruit number (22.4), marketable fruit number (56.0%), marketable fruit weight (356.8 g) and total yield (564.5 g) per plant. Bed width had no significant effect on fruit size and quality characters. Plants grown in cocopeat produced the highest marketable fruit number (56.2%) per plant and yielded the greatest (445.6 g) marketable yield per plant. Plants grown in cocopeat substrate produced higher fruit number (5.2%) and total yield (0.7%) than that of rockwool substrate. Fruit size and fruit quality characters showed no significant differences within growing substrates. Hence, planting the tomato cultivars in single row at 60 cm bed width is better approach to optimize the production space in greenhouse and cocopeat is recommended as potential growing substrates for tomato cultivation to increase its yield and fruit quality characters.