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Study: To improve processing tomato production sustainability

23/01/2020

François-Xavier Branthôme
Italy,
WPTC
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Organic processing tomato: using digestate and biochar to improve processing tomato production sustainability

The principal goal of the organic farming system (OFS) is to develop enterprises that are sustainable and harmonious with the environment. Unfortunately, the OFS yields fewer products per land than the non-organic farming system in many agricultural products.
The objective of a new study was to assess the effects of digestate and biochar (*) fertilizers on yield and fruit quality of processing tomato produced under the OFS. The experiment was carried out in Po Valley, during the 2017 and 2018 growing seasons. Liquid digestate (LD), LD + biochar (LD + BC) and pelleted digestate (PD) were evaluated and compared to biochar (BC) application and unfertilized control. 

 
The results showed that plants fertilized with LD + BC recorded the maximum marketable yield (72 t ha−1), followed by BC (67 t ha−1), PD (64 t ha−1) and LD (59 t ha−1); while the lowest production (47 t ha−1) was recorded in unfertilized plants.
Over the two cropping seasons, LD + BC, BC, PD, and LD, increased fruit number per plant (+15%), fruit weight (+24%), Brix t ha−1 (+41%) and reduced Bostwick index (−16%), if compared to the untreated control.

In their conclusions, authors of the study explain that, considering the overall agronomic performances, fertilizers assessed in their work improved marketable yield and fruit quality of processing tomato cultivated in Northern Italy under the OFS. The highest values of total and marketable yields were obtained with LD + BC combination and these results were related to the highest plant growth and fertility in terms of fruit number per plant, fruit weight, main stem length, aboveground biomass, FWP and NAE. Moreover, LD + BC improved two important fruit quality parameters like Brix t ha−1 and Bostwick viscosity thus ensuring an improved fruit quality for tomato canning companies.  Hence, these fertilizers can be assessed in future research both on other crops and farming systems.

More results and details are available in the full study at Agronomy.

(*): charcoal produced from plant matter and stored in the soil as a means of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Source: hortidaily.com, mdpi.com

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