Desarrollo radicular de la fase vegetativa del tomate (Solanum lycopersicum) cultivado en invernadero bajo diferentes láminas de riego

Abstract

There is a close relationship between irrigation and productivity; This is because the growth and yield of crops are determined by the transport and accumulation of water in the plant. In turn, the transport and accumulation of water in the plant depends on the morphology and functioning of the roots, which are the organ through which the plant absorbs water from the medium in which it develops. So too, the root system can be affected by the amount and frequency of irrigation, since a tendency has been reported for root density, depth and length of the roots to decrease in wellwatered conditions. Recently the interest in improving the efficiency of water use in crops has increased and motivated to explore the possibility of producing with less water through the use of techniques such as deficit irrigation. However, in our environment, the effects that the reduction of the applied irrigation layers may have on the morphology and functioning of the roots have not been explored. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of the application of different irrigation layers on the root development of the tomato crop during its vegetative phase, simulating the application of deficit irrigation, as well as the effect of this reduction in the irrigation sheet in the development of the aerial organs was evaluated. The experiment was carried out under a greenhouse at the Yanuncay Campus of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Cuenca, using a completely randomized block design (DBCA) with 3 treatments and 4 repetitions with a total of 12 experimental units and a substrate to soil base, charcoal and rice husk in proportions 4-1-1. The treatments evaluated were: T1) Irrigation sheet at 100% of ETc, this being the control treatment, T2) Irrigation sheet at 75% of ETc and T3) Irrigation sheet at 50% of ETc . In data analysis, the Shapiro-Wilk test was used to assess normality in the distribution of data and subsequently the Bartlett test was applied to verify if there is homogeneity of variances. When these two principles were met, the ANOVA test was used followed by the Tukey test. When the assumptions of normality and homoscedasticity were not met, the non-parametric Kruskal Wallis. In general, no significant differences were distinguished for the variables, which makes us think that the irrigation layer can be reduced without affecting the development of the plant, however, we can observe that there is a clear trend for the variables dry foliar biomass, length of roots, flowering and relative water content, which suggests that the reduced sheets could have affected these variables if the experiment had continued for a longer time.