Greenhouse Tomato Production for Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security in the Tropics

Abstract

Greenhouse vegetable cultivation offers one of the optimistic approaches to ensuring sustainable food and nutrition security in the tropics. Although greenhouse vegetable production is known to be costly, this system of production is gaining popularity and contributes to sustainable tomato production with improved fruit quality and productivity, which results in higher economic returns. Among vegetable crops, tomato is the most cultivated under this system. A study was conducted to identify suitable soilless media for regenerating tomato cuttings from axillary stem of tomato plants and to assess the agronomic performance of the regenerated cuttings under greenhouse condition. The tomato cuttings were raised using 100% rice husk biochar, 100% rice husk, 100% cocopeat, 50% biochar +50% cocopeat, 50% cocopeat +50% rice husk. Two tomato hybrid varieties (Lebombo and Anna) were used. Cuttings from axillary stems were compared with those raised from seed. A 2 × 2 factorial experiment was arranged in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with four replications. From the study, 100% rice husk biochar was found to induce root development in stem cuttings of tomato. However, no significant differences in yield and fruit quality were found between plants raised from seed and those from stem cuttings.