2017 ASHS Annual Conference

Trial consisted of 9 different tomato varieties (5 roma and 4 round); 3 different planting dates; 3 different soil covers (black plastic mulch, white plastic mulch and bare ground); 4 plants/plot at 1.5 feet spacing between plants and 6.6666 feet between rows with an average plant population of 4,356 plants/acre.

Varieties that best performed were SV8579TE (roma), TAM Hot-Ty (round) and Shourouq (round) with yields of 42,092 lbs/acre, 40,088 lbs/acre and 39,225 lbs/acre respectively. Overall the 2^nd planting date produced higher yields (avg. 43,195 lbs/acre) with the three best varieties being the round type TAM Hot-Ty (57,718 lbs/acre), roma type SV8579TE (50,991 lbs/acre) and round type Shourouq (49,551 lbs/acre). And the best yields occurred with the white plastic treatment (avg. 54,917 lbs/acre), with highlights to varieties TAM Hot-Ty round type (67,278 lbs/acre), SV8579TE roma type (62,462 lbs/acre) and Mykonos round type (60,986 lbs/acre).

The best fruit quality was found on varieties TAM Hot-Ty (4.85% Brix), SV8579TE (4.61% Brix) and Mykonos (4.58% Brix) which corroborates with the white plastic treatment. In general, round type varieties produced large to medium size fruits with some extra large and small. Roma types produced fruits sizes varying from large to small. The brix did not vary much between varieties from 4.16% to 4.85%. Within round types the brix varied from 4.46% to 4.85% and the roma types from 4.16% to 4.61%. The fruit diameter in round type tomatoes were larger the roma varying from 7.30 to 7.77 cm and 4.93 to 6.21 cm, respectively. The fruit thickness had no significant variation between varieties or fruit types.