Agricultural Science Digest

Tomato is an important vegetable crop of Himachal Pradesh grown during summer and rainy seasons. Although the produce of the tomato fetches lucrative rates in the plains of Northern India, yet, the production is threatened by plethora of factors viz., diseases, insect-pests and weeds which ultimately affects yield and quality of fruits. The planting methods, mulches and training systems played enormous role in maintaining the soil temperature and moisture.

The present investigation was carried out to study the performance of tomato (var. Solan Lalima) crop under open field conditions with two different planting methods, three types of mulch treatments and two types of training systems. This experiment was conducted at Vegetable Research Farm of DR YSP, UHF, Nauni, Solan during the period from March to September, 2017-18 and similarly for the period from March to September, 2018-19.

The maximum soil temperature was recorded under blackmulch followed by silver/black polythene mulch and control during the standard meteorological week (March to September, 2017-18 and 2019). Soil moisture was found to be maximum those treatments where silver or black mulch was used as compared to black mulch plot under the open field conditions. The maximum fruit yield (140.71 kg/plot) was obtained under the raised bed planting system, black mulch and two stem training system and the corresponding value being 136.16 kg/plot for raised bed planting method, silver/black mulch and two stem training system.