Impact of biochar on the yield and nutritional quality of tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) under drought stress

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Undeviating climatic instabilities have increased the incidents of drought. Crop performance and yield attributes of tomatoes are negatively affected by drought stress. Biochar is an organic amendment that can increase crop yield and nutritional value under water-deficient conditions by retaining water and providing nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other trace elements).RESULTS: The present study was designed to investigate the effects of biochar on tomato plant physiology, yield, and nutritional quality under deficit moisture regimes. Plants were subjected to two biochar levels (0.1% and 0.2%) and four moisture levels [100%, 70%, 60%, and 50% field capacities (FCs)]. Drought stress, especially 50D (50% FC), severely affected the plant morphology, physiology, yield, and fruit quality attributes. However, plants grown in biochar-amended soil showed significant increase in the studied attributes. Plant height, root length, fresh and dry weight of root, the number of fruits per plant, fruit fresh and dry weight, ash percent, crude fat, crude fiber, crude protein, and lycopene contents were increased in plants grown in biochar-amended soil under control and drought stress.CONCLUSION: Biochar at 0.2% application rate depicted a more pronounced increment in the studied parameters than 0.1% and can save 30% water without compromising tomato crop yield and nutritional value.

Assessing the Impact of Sustainable Biochar-Enriched Substrates on Safety and Quality of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) as Relevant Model Crop

“…Regarding the stem diameter, BC treatments produced significant positive variations. These results are in accordance with the previous findings showing that biochar has a positive impact on tomato plant development, − due to the positive synergy between biochar-enriched substrates (i.e., water retention, organic matter, nutrients, and aeration in the soil) and plant nutrition. ,, Additionally, our results evidenced that plant growth improvement is accomplished by using a very high amount of biochar (e.g., 20 and 40% v/v ) regardless of the alkaline pH of the media (Table ). Indeed, most of the prior investigations focused on pot experiments applying less than 10% v/v of biochar, , while the highest used concentration is reported by Petruccelli et al and Massa et al, both carrying out pot greenhouse trials by mixing up to 20% of biochar in a peat-based substrate.…”

“…The findings indicate that biochar has a positive effect on plant growth compared to BC0. Plant height (along with fresh and dry biomass) is one of the most reliable attributes to explain plant growth, being the lowest in BC0 (70.4 ± 2.7 cm) and increasing significantly with higher biochar contents (BC10, BC20, and BC40). These treatments did not display significant variations, while BC5 showed intermediate growth between the control and the other biochar-based media.…”

Synergistic enhancement of maize crop yield and nutrient assimilation via zinc oxide nanoparticles and phosphorus fertilization

“…Meanwhile, plant height and cob length were determined. 33 However, for leaf area (cm 2 ) per plant and leaf area index, five different plants from each treatment were selected randomly for initial growth stages. 34 When the tasseling stage was reached, base-to-tip length and middle width were measured and converted to leaf area using the following model: Leaf area =Length×Width×0:75…”

Nutritional Quality and Yield Performance of Plum (Prunus domestica) Varieties Grown in Punjab, Pakistan

“…Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Color Chart 2001 was used to record data on fruit color [11]. The fruit weight was determined using a Puchun brand digital electronic balance with the model number JA2003B and its value was recorded in grams [12,13].…”