The Effects Of Planting Pattern And Remaining Clusters And Fruits On Plant Growth, Fruit Yield And Quality Of Tomato

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), a perennial herb belonging to subgenus Solanum of Solanaceae, is originated from South Ameica. Tomato is a kind of fruit with rich nutrition and also one of the most widely cultivated vegetables. At present, in order to pursuit high tomato yield on tomato, the traditional planting spacing has been taken into account. And the cultivation methods of high density and low topping or remaning more clusters and fruits were used by producers. However, these may cause poor ventilation and photopermeability and the disorder of source-sink relationship, which may lead to the decrease of fruit yield and decline in fruit quality. Therefore, identify the effects of plantation density, planting spacing arrangement, as well as remaining clusters and fruits on tomato fruit yield and quality, then screen out a appropriate cultivation pattern, it should have significant importance for high quality and yield production.Two large-fruit type tomato varieties,’Fenguan’ and’Hezuo 908’were adopted as the test materials, which planted in the plastic greenhouse in conventional cultivation. We studied on the effects of different planting space, planting density and remaining clusters per plant, and remaining clusters and fruits per clusters on growth, yield and quality of tomato.1. To investigate different row spacing on tomato plant growth and fruit yield and quality, to determine the suitability of tomato cultivation row spacing. The two varities were applied with three treatments, i.e.,0.40mx0.60m (T1),0.30mx0.80m (T2) and 0.20m×1.20m (T3). All the treatments were with the same planting density of 2780/667m2. The results revealed that the treatment of 0.80m x 0.30m, tomato height was the highest, stem diameter was the thickest, and specific leaf weight was the maximum. With the prolonger of the growth period, three treatments tomato total chlorophyll content and root activity increased at first and then decreased, total chlorophyll maximum in June 7, root activity in the June 21 highest. Since June 7, T2 total chlorophyll content and root activity was significantly higher than T3, and continued until July 5. T2 fruit weight, yield per plant and yield per unit area, as well as lycopene, soluble solids and titratable acid content was significantly higher than other treatments. Other indexes difference was not significant differences. The results indicated that the painting spacing of 0.80m×0.30m (T2) was beneficial to improve the growth and yield and quality of tomato.2. To investigate the effects of different planting density and remaining clusters per plant on growth, yield and quality of tomato, and determine suitable planting density and the remaining clusters of tomato as well, two large tomato varieties were adopted. The experiment was designed with three treatments:1400 plants per 667m2 with 7 fruits cluster per plant (T1),2800 plants per 667m2 with 5 fruits cluster per plant (T2), and 5600 plants per 667m2 with 3 fruits cluster per plant (T3). The results showed that T1 and T2 plant height, stem diameter, leaf net photosynthetic rate and transpiration rate were significantly higher than T3; With the prolonger of the growth period, three treatments tomato total chlorophyll content and root activity increased at first and then decreased, and its highest values appear in the June 11 (total chlorophyll) and June 21 (root activity) respectively. Since June 1, T1 and T2 total chlorophyll content was significantly higher than T3, and continued until July 1. Since June 11, T1 and T2 root activity was significantly higher than T3, and continued until July 1. T2 yield per unit area and soluble sugars, lycopene, vitamin C, soluble solids and other chemical constituents were significantly higher than T1 and T3. The results indicated that the density of 2800 plants per 667m2 with 5 fruits clusters per plant were beneficial to improve the growth, yield and quality of tomato.3. To investigate the effects of different remained clusters and fruits per plant on growth, yield and quality of tomato, two large tomato varieties were adopted. The experiment was designed with four treatments in the density of 2800 plants per 667m2, specifically remaining 3 clusters and 5 fruits per cluster (T1), remaining 4 clusters and 4 fruits per cluster (T2), remaining 5 clusters and 3 fruits per cluster (T3), remaining 6 clusters and 2 fruits per cluster (T4). The results showed that T3 plants stem diameter and the average length was not significant with other treatments. With the prolonged of growth period, four treatments tomato total chlorophyll content and root activity increased at first and then decreased, and its highest values appear in the June 20 (total chlorophyll) and June 30 (root activity). Since June 20, T3 total chlorophyll content and root activity was significantly higher than T1 and T2, and continued until July 10. T3 fruit set, net photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate and intercellular CO2 concentration were the maximum; and fruit weight, yield per plant and yield per unit area, as well as fruit lycopene content, soluble protein content and sugar acid ratio and other quality indexes were significantly higher than other treatments. The results indicated under the planting density of 2800 plants per 667m2, remaining 5 clusters and 3 fruits per cluster was beneficial to improve the growth, yield and quality of tomato.