ISHS Acta Horticulturae 747: VIII International Symposium on Protected Cultivation in Mild Winter Climates: Advances in Soil and Soilless Cultivation under Protected Environment
YIELD AND QUALITY UNDER SALINE CONDITIONS AND RESTRICTED NITRATE SUPPLY IN CHERRY TOMATO GROWN SOILLESS |
| Authors: | M.G. Lozano, I. Escobar, J.J. Berenguer |
| Keywords: | substrates, nutrition, mild climate |
| Abstract:
On the experimental farm La Nacla, situated in Motril (Granada province, Spain), an area where one of the main crops is cherry tomato, with some 700 hectares in greenhouses and on trellises, different methods were used during the 2004–05 season to diminish yield losses caused by fruit cracking, which can reduce the harvest by 40%. The test was made in crops grown on perlite and in an improved unheated parral-type greenhouse. The treatments were: A) control, receiving the standard fertilizer treatment of the zone; B) saline, receiving fertilizer as in control but the quantity of sodium chloride that is often present in local irrigation water (between 2 and 4 mmol/L Cl-), was increased up to 15 mmol; C) saline with less N, as in the saline treatment the irrigation water contains up to 15 mmol Cl-, and the nitrate became diminished in the production phase to 6 mmol/L; D) only with less N (like in C). The analytic data from the drains show values of up to 37 mmol/L of Cl- in the treatments with salt, and values of up to 5 mmol/L of nitrates in the treatments with less nitrate. However, although it is true that the two salt treatments resulted in less split fruit at a statistical level, the commercial yield was the same in the four treatments, with greater water consumption in the saline treatments. Other parameters, such as mean weight, fruit pH, fruit consistency, EC of the nutrient solution, are analysed in this work. | |
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