Abstract
This study investigated the effects of 4 aeration levels (varied by injection of air to the soil through subsurface irrigation lines) at two subsurface irrigation line depths (15 and 40 cm) on plant growth, yield and nutritional quality of greenhouse tomato. In all experiments, fruit number, width and length, yield, vitamin C, lycopene and sugar/acid ratio of tomato markedly increased in response to the aeration treatments. Vitamin C, lycopene, and sugar/acid ratio increased by 41%, 2%, and 43%, respectively, in the 1.5 times standard aeration volume compared with the no-aeration treatment. An interaction between aeration level and depth of irrigation line was also observed with yield, fruit number, fruit length, vitamin C and sugar/acid ratio of greenhouse tomato increasing at each aeration level when irrigation lines were placed at 40 cm depth. However, when the irrigation lines were 15 cm deep, the trend of total fruit yields, fruit width, fruit length and sugar/acid ratio first increased and then decreased with increasing aeration level. Total soluble solids and titrable acid decreased with increasing aeration level both at 15 and 40 cm irrigation line placement. When all of the quality factors, yields and economic benefit are considered together, the combination of 40 cm line depth and “standard” aeration level was the optimum combination.
Highlights
Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is one of the world’s main vegetable crops, and it is cultivated worldwide for fresh vegetable consumption or for processing
The results showed the root zone aeration had a significant effect on plant height during 25 to 73 days after transplant (DAT) and 46, 96 DAT of stem diameter
The ANOVA F-value showed the interaction of irrigation line depth and aeration level is significant for plant height at 25, 46 and 73 DAT but not at 65, 82 and 96 DAT for plant height and stem diameter (Table 1)
Summary
Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is one of the world’s main vegetable crops, and it is cultivated worldwide for fresh vegetable consumption or for processing. Tomato is known as an important source of antioxidants such as vitamin C and lycopene in the human diet[2,3], which have been linked with reduced risk of cancer, prostate, and heart diseases[3,4,5,6] It is one of the most important vegetable crops in terms of production and acreage in both open-field and greenhouse production in northwest China. It is well known that most plant roots require an adequate and continuous supply of soil O2 in order to respire, grow, develop, and function normally. This supply is obtained directly from the soil air. Wang et al.[27] found that the average bulk density of subsurface soil (16–30 cm deep) in a greenhouse increases with increasing time of cultivation
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