Hort. Sci. (Prague), 2014, 41(4):185-191 | DOI: 10.17221/259/2013-HORTSCI

Alternate partial root-zone drying irrigation improves fruit quality in tomatoesOriginal Paper

Y. SUN1,3, P.E. HOLM2,3, F. LIU2,3
1 College of Life Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P. R. China
2 Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen, Taastrup, Denmark
3 Sino-Danish Center for Education and Research, Beijing, P. R. China

Alternate partial root-zone drying (PRD) irrigation and deficit irrigation (DI) are water-saving irrigation strategies. Here, comparative effects of PRD and DI on fruit quality of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) were investigated. The results showed that the irrigation treatments had no effect on tomato yield but significantly affected several organic and mineral quality attributes of the fruits. Compared to DI, PRD significantly increased the fruit concentrations of Ca and Mg, and fruit juice concentrations of total soluble solid, glucose, fructose, citric and malic acid, P, K and Mg. It is concluded that PRD is better than DI in terms of improving fruit quality, and could be a promising management strategy for simultaneous increase of water use efficiency and fruit quality in tomatoes.

Keywords: water deficit; minerals; organic acids; sugars

Published: December 31, 2014  Show citation

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SUN Y, HOLM PE, LIU F. Alternate partial root-zone drying irrigation improves fruit quality in tomatoes. Hort. Sci. (Prague). 2014;41(4):185-191. doi: 10.17221/259/2013-HORTSCI.
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