AGRONOMIC AND PHYSIOTECNICAL EVALUATION OF FOUR PRODUCTION SYSTEMS IN TWO TOMATO HYBRIDS

To evaluate, physiotechnicaly and agronomicaly, four different production systems of tomato using two hybrids, the growth and yield per plant and area unit were compared. The plants were conducted to a single stem and trimmed two leaves above the third cluster. A randomized complete block experimental design with four replications was used with a factorial arrangement of treatments. The production systems were: Canopy with a stair shape formed by four rows of plants of the same age located to different height; canopy with crop cycles overlapped in a stairs shape; uniform canopy formed by four rows of plants and uniform canopy formed by three rows of plants, and genotypes were ‘Sun Lider’ and ‘Pick Ripe’. Several growth indicators were evaluated every 30 days and, at the final of crop cycle, the yield and their primary components. The production system with stair shape canopy formed with plants at different height, maintained high assimilation net rates along the crop cycle and presented the highest yield (2.35 kg/plant or 16.15 kg/m2 in a period of four months from transplant to final harvest, and the highest fruit medium weight (140 g); in number of fruits per plant the highest value was for the overlapped system (19.18 fruits). The genotype ‘Sun Lider’ with 2.25 kg/plant, overcame ‘Pick ripe 461’ (2.12 kg / plant). ADDITIONAL