Department of Renewable Energy & Rural Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering & Technology, Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh, (Gujarat)
*Email: pmchauhan@jau.in
Online published on 15 December, 2016.
The study was conducted to evaluated the performance of tomato crop in soilless and soil media grown in fanpad type greenhouse located at Junagadh (210 31’N, 700 36"E) during the period of October, 2011 to February, 2012. The fertigation was applied by using locally developed fertigation system at five growth (transplanting and four clusters) stages of the crop. The experiments were conducted for three cultivars of tomato i.e. Sygent-IR-40474R (V1), Arka-Samrat (V2) and Arka-Rakshak (V3) using two substrates i.e. coco-coir grow bags (soilless substrate) and in medium black soil. The daily weekly average inside greenhouse temperature was varied between 16.8°C and 34.7°C. In soilless media the first picking of tomato fruits was done after 75 days whereas in soil media after 90 days. The results indicated that about 1.67, 2.45 and 2.5 times production was noted for Sygenta, Arka-Samrat and Arka-Rakshak varieties respectively however slightly higher TSS(upto12%) was observed in soil media grown tomato fruits compared to soilless grown fruits.
Soilless cultivation, Greenhouse, Fertigation system
