Response of tomato plants to water stress and calcium nutrition
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Date
2018
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Abstract
Calcium is widely accepted as the main factor responsible for blossom-end rotappearance in tomato fruit. However, there is no clear evidences of how this physiological disorder is trigger. In this study, tomato plants from hybrid cultivar H8504 were used to make a factorial arrangement with two factors, water and calcium, being a total of four treatments: water stress and without calcium supply, water stress and calcium supply, optimum watering and without calcium supply, andoptimum watering and calcium supply. The results of biomass, yield, fruit quality and nutrient content changed with water stress treatments, only the standard germination, was not affected. In conclusion according to these results, although the water factor is the main responsible for the development of fruits with Blossom-end rot, the combined water stress and without calcium supply treatment was the most unfavorable condition for the plant. This treatment also showed predominance of protoxylem traqueary elements, and a less developed xylem tissue compared to plants in treatment with optimum watering and calcium supply. This could indicate that the lack of calcium combined with less movement of sap in the xylem, derived from a water deficit, can affect the formation of xylem tissue during the development of the fruit. This difficult the movement of calcium towards the fruit by the xylem and according to this, blossom-end rot could be a primary consequence of ananatomical problem, and that can be affected the distribution of calcium within the damage fruit, healthy fruits have more soluble calcium than fruits that present this physiological disorder.
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Tesis (Magíster en Fisiología y Producción Frutal)--Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2018