Effect of Soilless Substrates on Fruit Quality of Four Greenhouse Tomato Cultivars

The most important determinants of tomato fruits quality are color, size and firmness of visual quality and acidity, soluble solids, vitamin C and antioxidant capacity biochemical. In order to evaluate the effect of substrates on quality of four greenhouse tomato cultivars a factorial experiment in a randomized complete block design with three replications was carried out. The treatments included four soilless substrates (rotten bagasse, rotten bagasse perlite (1: 1 V), cocopeat, cocopeat perlite (1: 1 V)) and four greenhouse tomato cultivars (‘Shaghayegh’, ‘Pardis’, ‘Valuro’, and ‘Izmir’). The results showed a significant effect of substrate on lycopene, carotenoids fruit and the lighting color of the fruit (L *). Cultivar had a significant effect on the size, weight and surface color fruit. The interaction of cultivar and substrates was significant at 1% on length, firmness, titratable acidity, soluble solids, vitamin C, antioxidant capacity and total phenol of tomato fruit. The highest firmness of fruits was observed in cultivar Pardis in the Cocopeat perlite (12.18 N). In general, Shaghayegh cultivar and Bagasse perlite substrate was recommended for successful greenhouse tomato fruit production.