Applied Biology and Biotechnology

 ISSN:  2320 –7825  (Print); eISSN   2320 –7833  (Online)

Studies on Soilless Culture for Growth and Yield of Tomato in Naturally Ventilated Greenhouse

Ranjit Singh, Asha Joseph and E.K. Mathew

Abstract

Soilless culture offers a valuable alternative compared to crop production in soil and has been widely adopted by specialist producers of greenhouse crops in the world, particularly for vegetable crops such as tomatoes and cucumbers. In this study coir pith and sawdust used as pure soilless media for growing tomato (Variety, LE - 66) inside a naturally ventilated greenhouse. The objective of this study was to compare the effect of soil and different soilless media, coir pith (without any compost) and saw dust (without any compost) for growth and yield of tomato. The bulk density of coir pith, saw dust and soil was 1.03, 0.92 and 1.99 kg/m3 respectively. Moisture depletion rate was faster in saw dust as compare to coir pith. The average water requirement for the entire crop period was calculated 2 litre/day/plant .Crops were supplied with drip irrigation at the rate of 50%, 75% and 100% of total crop water requirement and micro and macro nutrient were applied to all the three medias. The crop inside the naturally ventilated greenhouse in soil with drip irrigation of 1 litre/day/plant (50 % irrigation level) performed well during experiment with a water use efficiency of 117.96 kg/ha mm and average yield of 14.81 tonne/ha. The crops in the soil media gave higher yield than the soilless media. In case of coir pith, the treatment with 2 litre/day/plant (100 % irrigation level) recorded the highest yield (7.93 tonne/ha) where as in sawdust the highest yield (2.50 tonne/ha) was obtained for the treatment having 1 litre/day/ plant irrigation. So overall soil was best suited for higher water use efficiency than coir pith and saw dust but in comparison between the soilless media coir pith was better performance than saw dust for soilless cultivation of tomato in term of yield and fruit weight.

Keywords: Soilless; Drip irrigation; Water use efficiency; Saw dust; Coir Pith; Green house.

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Volume No. 2(4)                              December,2014