Effect of plant geometry and fertigation on growth and yield of cherry tomato (Solanum lycopersicon var. cerasiforme) under zero energy polyhouse conditions

Abstract

An experiment consisting of twelve treatment combinations of four plant geometries and three levels of fertigation with three replications in Factorial Completely Randomized Design was conducted at Udaipur under zero energy polyhouse conditions. Among the different plant geometries and fertigation levels adopted, S4 (75 cm × 60 cm) and F3 (NPK @ 250:125:125 kgha-1) were found statistically superior to enhance plant height (284.78 cm), stem girth (1.33 and 1.22 cm), number of branches per plant (18.17 and 18.13), leaf area (337.84 and 327.99 cm2), number of flower clusters per plant (50.93 and 51.26) , fruit set (77.44 and 73.04%), fruits per cluster (12.45 and 11.56), number of fruits per plant (461.74 and 417.80), average fruit weight (5.95 and 5.57 g) and yield per plant (2.75 and 2.34 kg). Maximum fruit yield per unit area was observed at spacing of 45 cm × 45 cm (S1) with F3 fertigation level due to greater crop biomass.