What evidence exists on the effectiveness of the techniques and management approaches used to improve the productivity of field-grown tomatoes under conditions of water-, nitrogen- and/or phosphorus-deficit? A systematic map

Abstract

Background: Agriculture is facing an unprecedented challenge in having to reduce its environmental footprint whilst ensuring food security to an ever-growing global population. Towards this end, several strategies have been investigated and implemented to help maintain or improve crop yield under reduced water and/or nutrient provision for key commercial commodities such as tomatoes. Despite the high commercial, nutritional, and food-cultural value, there is no synthesis of evidence regarding yield maintenance of tomato (as a model crop) under resource-deficit. This systematic map therefore provides an overview of the evidence that exists on the effectiveness of techniques and management approaches aimed at improving the productivity of field-grown tomatoes under conditions of water-, nitrogen- (N) and/or phosphorus (P)-deficit. Methods: Following the published map protocol, systematic searches of peer reviewed- and grey-literature were conducted using research publication databases, and specialist websites. A total of 14,377 unique articles were identified as potentially relevant to our research question, of which 927 were screened at the full-text level. Of that subset, 291 articles met all the pre-defined eligibility criteria. Basic information and meta-data on the interventions reported were recorded for these articles and a systematic map was compiled with the extracted data. Results: The articles included in the systematic map database were used to identify several significant points including: (1) from the year 2000, the number of articles investigating strategies to improve field-grown tomato yield under conditions of water and/or nutrient deficit follows an upward trend; (2) large evidence bases (> 50%) originated from the United States, India, and Italy; (3) most studies addressed water alone as a resource (49%), with only 18% of studies focussing on N and 4% on P alone. Only 4% of records assessed all three resources simultaneously; (4) most evidence (77%) aims to improve resource use-efficiency via either irrigation, fertilisation, or crop and soil management strategies; and (5) different geographical regions appear to focus on different groups of interventions. Conclusions: This systematic map identifies a range of interventions that have been successfully implemented in fields to improve the yield of commercial tomatoes under conditions of water, N and/or P deficit. However, only half of the relevant literature reported evidence on more than one intervention, which highlights the need for more integrated approaches to assess multiple interventions to adapt to deficits of key-resources simultaneously. In addition, the use of ‘techno-chemical’, ‘breeding and genetic’ and ‘computational’ interventions are only reported in a small number of records (< 8% of the gathered evidence). Hence, these interventions may also be considered as subjects to prioritise in future funding strategies.