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. 2016 Dec 20:6:39307.
doi: 10.1038/srep39307.

Yields and Nutritional of Greenhouse Tomato in Response to Different Soil Aeration Volume at two depths of Subsurface drip irrigation

Yuan Li  1   2 , Wenquan Niu  1   3   2 , Miles Dyck  4 , Jingwei Wang  1   2 , Xiaoyang Zou  3
Affiliations

Yields and Nutritional of Greenhouse Tomato in Response to Different Soil Aeration Volume at two depths of Subsurface drip irrigation

Yuan Li et al. Sci Rep. .

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.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) Cross-sectional of the greenhouse in Northwest china; (B) Experimental arrangement of an example block. Treatments were randomized within each block.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Fruit yield (g/plant) at 150 days after transplant (first picking, n = 9) and 205 days after transplant (second picking, n = 9) from tomato plants for 4 aeration treatments (i.e. none or aeration applied for 3 different volumes).
Data are the means of nine replicates. with standard deviations shown by vertical bars. Different letters are significantly different between the treatments at 0.05 level according to Duncan’s test.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The relationship between artificial soil aeration volume with fruit yield of first picking (A), and total fruit yield (B).
Figure 4
Figure 4
The relationship between fruit weight with fruit width (A) and fruit length (B).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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