Tomato Fruit Quality under Protected Environment and Open Field Conditions

Abstract

Vegetables are important component of balanced human diet. Advanced production technologies are being followed to measure productivity and quality of produce. Pro­tected cultivation is an improved agro technique being used worldwide to register 3-4 times increase in production. Tomato is grown extensively in the plastic greenhouses for higher productivity. The growing conditions especially light and temperature are known to influence both composition and quality of tomato fruits. Hence, studies have been conducted to estimate the quality parameters of tomato grown both under open and in polyhouse with shade nets during cloudy weather in rainy season The results reveals that the fruits harvested from the field had higher TSS:TA ratio (11.73), acid­ity (0.49%), total sugar (2.5%), ascorbic acid (14.7 mg 100g-1), TSS (5.76oB) and the lycopene content (8.7mg 100 g-1) than the fruits grown under protected conditions. However, the environment in the polyhouse favour the growth and development of tomato plant through increased plant height (1.4m) and number of branches. The fruit yield obtained from the polyhouse was higher (2.6 kg plant-1) than the open field (1.5 kg plant-1). Hence, both types of environmental conditions are favourable in some aspects. The parameters of economic importance like fruit weight and yield are better under protected conditions but the nutritional parameters like vitamin C and lycopene content are higher in open conditions during rainy season.