Modified plant architecture integrated with liquid fertilizers improves fruit productivity and quality of tomato in North West Himalaya, India

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 11; no. 1; p. 18664
• Main Authors: Rathore, Avinash Chandra, Mehta, Harsh, Jayaprakash, J., Singh, Charan, Gupta, Anand Kumar, Kumar, Pawan, Islam, Sadikul, Kar, Saswat Kumar, Patra, Sridhar, Chand, Lekh, Doharey, Vijay Kumar, Ojasvi, Prabhat Ranjan, Yadav, Ram Swaroop, Madhu, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 20-09-2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/1647; 631/449; 704/172; Agriculture - methods; Animal manures; Carbon - analysis; Crops, Agricultural - growth & development; Dry matter; Enzymatic activity; Farmers; Fertilizers; Fertilizers - analysis; Fruit - chemistry; Fruit - growth & development; Fruit - metabolism; Fruits; Humanities and Social Sciences; India; Liquid fertilizers; Lycopersicon esculentum - growth & development; Lycopersicon esculentum - metabolism; Manures; multidisciplinary; Productivity; Pruning; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Soil - chemistry; Tomatoes; India
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-98209-z

India produces around 19.0 million tonnes of tomatoes annually, which is insufficient to meet the ever-increasing demand. A big gap of tomato productivity (72.14 t ha
–1
) between India (24.66 t ha
–1
) and the USA (96.8 t ha
–1
) exist, which can be bridged by integrating trellis system of shoot training, shoot pruning, liquid fertilizers, farmyard manure, and mulching technologies. Therefore, the present experiment was conducted on tomato (cv. Himsona) during 2019–2020 at farmers' fields to improve tomato productivity and quality. There were five treatments laid in a randomized block design (RBD) with three replications; T
1
[Farmer practice on the flatbed with RDF @ N
120
:P
60
:K
60
 + FYM @6.0 t ha
−1
without mulch], T
2
[T
1
 + Polythene mulch (50 microns)], T
3
[Tomato plants grown on the raised bed with polythene mulch + FYM @ 8.0 t ha
−1
 + Single shoot trellis system + Side shoot pruning + Liquid Fertilizer (LF
1
—N
19
:P
19
:K
19
) @ 2.0 g l
–1
for vegetative growth + Liquid Fertilizer (LF
2
—N
0
: P
52
: K
34
) @ 1.5 g l
–1
for improving fruit quality], T
4
[Tomato plants grown on the raised bed with polythene mulch + FYM @ 8.0 t ha
−1
 + Single shoot trellis system + Side shoot pruning + LF
1
@ 4.0 g l
–1
 + LF
2
@ 3.0 g l
–1
], and T
5
[Tomato plants grown on the raised bed with polythene mulch + FYM @ 10.0 t ha
−1
 + Single shoot trellis system + Side shoot pruning + LF
1
@ 6.0 g l
–1
 + LF
2
@ 4.5 g l
–1
]. The results revealed that tomato plant grown on the raised beds with polythene mulch, shoot pruning, trellising, liquid fertilizers, and farmyard manure (i.e., T
5
) recorded higher shoot length, dry matter content, and tomato productivity by 20.75–141.21, 18.79–169.4, and 18.89–160.87% as compared to T
4
–T
1
treatments, respectively. The T
5
treatment also recorded the highest water productivity (28.39 kg m
–3
), improved fruit qualities, net return (10,751 USD ha
–1
), benefit–cost ratio (3.08), microbial population, and enzymatic activities as compared to other treatments. The ranking and hierarchical clustering of treatments confirmed the superiority of the T
5
treatment over all other treatments.