The use of biostimulants can mitigate the effect of high temperature on productivity and quality of tomato

V. Hernández, P. Hellín, J. Fenoll, J. Cava, I. Garrido, M.V. Molina, P. Flores
This work studies the effect of chitosan (CH) and 2,4-epibrasinolide (BRs) on total fruit yield and the content in bioactive compounds, in tomatoes cultivated in a greenhouse under high temperature conditions. Five treatments were applied: 0.1 and 1 g L-1 CH, 10 and 30 µM BRs and a control. Treatment with BRs increased the total fruit yield as a result of an increase in fruit weight. In addition, at the highest dose (30 µM), an increase in the number of fruits compared with control plants was observed. For the CH treatment, only the highest dose (1 g L-1) led to an increase in yield that was related to an increase in the number of fruits. Regards carotenoids, BRs treatments had no significant effect on the concentration of health-related carotenoids (phytoene, phytofluene, β-carotene and lycopene) except for lutein that decreased by the treatment with 30 µM. Finally, treatments with CH had no effect on phytoene, phytofluene and lycopene but it decreased lutein and β-carotene concentrations at the highest dose. The results show that the application of bioestimulants could be considered a potential tool for increasing tomato production under high temperature conditions without decreasing the concentration of the most of the major carotenoids.
Hernández, V., Hellín, P., Fenoll, J., Cava, J., Garrido, I., Molina, M.V. and Flores, P. (2018). The use of biostimulants can mitigate the effect of high temperature on productivity and quality of tomato. Acta Hortic. 1194, 85-90
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2018.1194.14
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2018.1194.14
stress tolerance, plant growth, bioactive, carotenoids, climate warming
English

Acta Horticulturae