Improvement of tomato fruit quality with brackish water, under optimal irrigation management

Two major factors determine the quality of tomato fruits. Appearance (shape, size, color, firmness, and lack of blemishes) and taste, mostly associated with glucose and acid content. Most new tomato cultivars are of improved appearance, but with negligible improvement in taste, mainly during 'the initial 10-12 weeks of greenhouse tomato picking. The use of brackish irrigation water was found to raise glucose content of the fruit from approximately 100 to nearly 200 mg/dl. This was associated in many cases with an increase in blossom-end-rot, A balanced nutrition solution, based on a significant increase in Ca could sufficiently overcome this problem. A sharp decline in total fruit production was another drawback when brackish water was used for irrigation. It was found in the present study that an adequate irrigation management, including the possibility to leach excess salts out of the root system, resulted in maintaining fruit quality, and yield which was similar to the control. Water stress, obtained by reducing the quantities of water per application, but not the frequency, decreased fruit yield and improved their quality much less than brackish water.