Nitrogen Stress Effects on Growth and Nitrogen Accumulation by Field‐Grown Tomato

Abstract

There are few growth studies evaluating within‐season effects of N on vegetative growth and N accumulation of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.). Growth analysis of field‐grown tomato for a number of Florida locations and management systems is presented here. Severe N stress resulted in fewer and smaller, but thicker, leaves. With increasing N, average leaf area index (LAI) increased from ≈0.75 to ≈3, but radiation use efficiency (RUE) typically increased less then 30%. Lower RUE under N‐limited conditions reflected a decrease in N concentration of the most recently matured leaves from 40 mg g−1 to as little as 15 mg g−1. Over the life of well‐fertilized crops, leaf N concentrations dropped from 55 to 65 mg g−1 during initial growth to 20 to 35 mg g−1 at final harvest. Corresponding N concentrations for fruit and for stems were 30 to 35 mg g−1 and 15 to 25 mg g−1. Severe N stress affected leaf and stem N concentrations most drastically, whereas N in fruits was less variable. With lower N supply (N < 180 kg ha−1) under careful management, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) for field‐grown tomato was ≈0.4 Mg fresh fruit (kg N)−1 and average crop N accumulation increased from 37 to 210 kg N ha−1 as N fertilization increased from 0 to 333 kg N ha−1. As a fraction of the fertilizer N applied N fertilizer recovery ranged from 0.36 to 0.74 and 0.61 to 0.96 for drip‐irrigated and subirrigated crops, respectively.

Growth and Yield of Tomato Plants as Influenced by Nutrient Application Rates with Quantitative Control in Closed Rockwool Cultivation

“…These results agree well with those in our previous study of the DFT (Nakano et al, 2006). It is known that increased N supply drastically increases a plant's leaf area index, but has less effect on radiation use efficiency (Scholberg et al, 2000). Self shading within a canopy and mutual shading between plants reduces tomato yield (Papadopoulos and Pararajasingham, 1997).…”

Eficiência da fertirrigação nitrogenada e potássica do pimentão cultivado em ambiente protegido

“…Esses resultados são próximos aos obtidos por Scholberg et al (2000), ao observarem E RecN pelo tomateiro variando de 0,4 a 0,7 kg kg -1 , dependendo da dose de N aplicada. Também trabalhando com a cultura do tomateiro, Araújo et al (2007) verificaram E RecN com variação de 0,13 a 0,27 kg kg -1 .…”

Nitrogen uptake dynamics, yield and quality as influenced by nitrogen fertilization in ‘Piel de sapo’ melon

“…Nitrogen uptake dynamics in 'Piel de sapo' melon treatments involving greater amounts of N. This may be due to the fact that high N applications can stimulate vegetative growth at the expense of reproductive growth (Mills & Jones, 1979;Hartz & Hochmuth, 1996). It is widely accepted that the concentration of fruit N in relation to the total plant at the end of the crop cycle is higher than that of the leaves in different crops like tomato (Scholberg et al, 2000) or melon (Fukutoku et al, 2000;Zotarelli et al, 2008). However, in cucumber, Tanemura et al (2008) obtained similar final contributions of the two organs (43% in fruits and 41% in leaves).…”