THE USE OF HYDROPONICS FOR THE GROWTH AND EVALUATION OF CALIFORNIAN PROCESSING VARIETIES

The study of raw material characteristics and processing of vegitables and fruit require uniform quality material. Hydroponic techniques have been used for the production of Californian processing tomato varieties.

Growth requirements and climate control conditions were optimised for the production of several commercial varieties. Plant habit can be controlled to ensure an indeterminant growth allowing for multiple harvests for up to 12 weeks. A number of fruit and plant caracteristics such as; fruit size, brix and consistency data are assessed and found to be consistent with those expected from field grown plants.

The advantage of the above technique is to meet the high degree of control needed for the evaluation of biological material in experimental trials of 200 plants.