SAWDUST AND COCO COIR AS GROWING MEDIA FOR GREENHOUSE CHERRY TOMATOES

The use of organic substrates for greenhouse production can be a sustainable alternative for replacing inorganic substrate in México in terms of production costs maintaining crop productivity. This study was conducted to compare two organic sub¬strates (sawdust and coco coir) with an inorganic substrate (volcanic sand), with one component or mixtures by volume for cherry tomato production. Number of fruits, weight and equatorial diameter were measured at the harvest. The experimental design was a randomized complete block design with three replicates with a plant density of 3 plants m^-2. The highest yields were obtained from the plants grown with coco coir, coco coir/volcanic sand (13.2 kg m^-2) and only coco coir (12.04 kg m-2); the yield of sawdust and volcanic sand was 10.26 and 9.72 kg m^-2 respectively. However, statistical test showed no significant difference (P£0.05) among all used media for evaluated variables.