What are the key points of tomato cutting propagation techniques?
Tomato is also known as xihongshi (tomato) and yangshizi (foreign persimmon), and was called liuyueshi (June persimmon) and xibao sanyuan in ancient times. In Peru and Mexico, it was first called “wolf peach”. The fruit is rich in nutrients and has a distinctive flavor. It can be eaten raw, cooked, or processed into tomato paste, juice, or canned whole fruit. Tomato is one of the most widely cultivated fruit vegetables in the world.
Tomato is also known as xihongshi (tomato) and yangshizi (foreign persimmon), and was called liuyueshi (June persimmon) and xibao sanyuan in ancient times. In Peru and Mexico, it was first called “wolf peach”. The United States, the Soviet Union, Italy and China are the main producing countries. In European and American countries, China and Japan, there is large-scale cultivation in greenhouses, plastic tunnels and other protected facilities. It is widely planted throughout China. The cultivation area continues to expand.
Tomato is a herbaceous plant of the Solanaceae family, including determinate, semi-determinate and indeterminate growth types. Under suitable conditions it can grow for many years. The plant height is 0.7 Tomato production (18 photos) to 2 m. The whole plant is covered with sticky glandular hairs. The stem is semi-erect or semi-trailing, prone to lodging, with a height of 0.7 to 1.0 m or 1.0 to 1.3 m. The stem has strong branching ability, and adventitious roots easily form at the nodes; the stem lodges easily and roots upon touching the ground, so tomato cuttings are relatively easy to root. Odd-pinnate compound leaves or pinnately parted, alternate; leaf length 5 to 40 cm; leaflets very irregular, unequal in size, usually 5 to 9, ovate or oblong, 5 to 7 cm long, tapering at the tip, with irregular serrations or lobes at the margin, partially skewed, with short petiolules. The flowers are bisexual, yellow, self-pollinating, in compound racemes.
Flowers 3-9, in lateral corymbose inflorescences; calyx 5 to 7-lobed, lobes lanceolate to linear, persistent in fruit; corolla yellow, rotate, 5 to 7-lobed, about 2 cm in diameter; stamens 5 to 7, inserted on the tube, filaments short, anthers semi-synantherous, or forming a cone around the pistil; ovary 2-locular to multi-locular, stigma capitate. The fruit is a berry, flattened-globose or nearly globose, fleshy and juicy, orange-yellow or bright red, smooth. Seeds flat, kidney-shaped, grayish-yellow, 1000-grain weight 3.0 to 3.3 g, lifespan 3 to 4 years. Flowering and fruiting period in summer and autumn. The root system is well developed with strong regeneration ability, but most of the root mass is distributed in the 30 to 50 cm soil layer.
Key points of tomato cutting propagation techniques
Variety characteristics
The variety used is the 139 indeterminate tomato variety, with a growth period of 9 to 12 months. The plant is tall and large, with strong growth vigor, a well-developed root system, long internodes, good flowering ability, and a high fruit-setting rate, and its disease resistance is stronger than that of general cultivated varieties. It is a small-fruited type, with a single fruit weight of 10-15 grams, neat fruit shape, smooth and glossy fruit surface, a very small fruit navel, a sweet and mellow fruit flavor, good marketability, and good storage tolerance, with an average yield of 2500-3200 kg per 667 sq m (varying with cultivation season and cultivation management level).
Advantages of cutting propagation
The tomato stem is semi-erect and easily produces adventitious roots. This characteristic is used for cutting propagation.
1. It can save costs and increase efficiency. The price of each imported tomato seed is 0.8-1.0 yuan, while the cost of each cutting seedling is only 0.05 yuan, and one tomato plant can produce dozens of cuttings.
2. The seedling raising period is short. From cutting to rooting takes about 20-30 days, shortening the seedling raising period by about 10-20 days compared with general sowing and seedling raising.
3. Management is simple. Cutting seedlings grow neatly, recover quickly, and are easy to manage. They can be harvested 45-60 days after planting, and the products reach the market early and fetch a high price.
Pruning treatment
Before cutting, first reserve the side branches of the tomato plant. After the side branches grow out, select thick, vigorous young side branches from the tomato plant, cut off the tips of the side branches, keep the base 10-15 cm long, leave 3-4 small leaves on the side branches, tie 10-20 branches into 1 small bundle, soak the base of the side branches in 10 mg of 1000-fold thiophanate-methyl solution mixed with 1 kg of water, and take them out immediately, which helps sterilize the wounds. Then place the bottom 2-3 cm of the side branches into a 1000-fold dilution of 50% ethirimol soluble powder and soak for 1-2 hours to induce new root formation.
Cutting seedling management techniques
Seedbed preparation. The cutting seedling bed requires a field plot with loose and fertile soil, convenient drainage and irrigation, and good ventilation. Before cutting, plow deeply and sun the soil, apply base fertilizer, and disinfect the seedbed with carbendazim or potassium permanganate, etc. Level and harrow finely, make beds, with a bed width of 1-1.2 m. Open small furrows at 10 cm intervals, with a furrow depth of 3-5 cm, and irrigate, then place the cuttings at 10 cm intervals and cover with sieved seedbed soil. The soil covering thickness accounts for 1/3 of the length of the cutting itself.
After cutting, immediately build a small arched shed to shade light, keep warm and retain moisture, to avoid wilting of cuttings caused by high temperature, strong light or low temperature.
The temperature in the small arched shed should be maintained at 25-30°C, and the humidity at 80%-85%, which can promote new root formation. Seven days after cutting, a large number of roots have already sprouted at the stem nodes of the cutting base, and the shading materials can be gradually removed so that the cuttings gradually receive light. After 20 days, the root system has grown into shape, with a root length of 5 cm, and can be cut into seedling blocks for heeling-in, and can be planted 7-10 days later.
Management after planting
1. Apply base fertilizer. Apply 4000-5000 kg of decomposed chicken manure, 100 kg of superphosphate, and 30-40 kg of potassium dihydrogen phosphate or diammonium phosphate per 667 sq m.
2. Reasonable close planting. Adopt the method of multiple vine dropping and continuous growth. Do not pinch the tips of the tomato. The planting density should not be too high. Generally, plant with a large row spacing of 90-100 cm, a small row spacing of 60-70 cm, and a plant spacing of 30-35 cm, planting about 2200 plants per 667 sq m of greenhouse.
3. Temperature and humidity management. This variety has good cold tolerance. The plant can still grow normally when the winter low temperature is not lower than 7°C, making it suitable for protected cultivation in winter. After planting, to promote seedling recovery, the temperature should be 25-28°C, the humidity 80%-85%, and the ground temperature above 12°C. After seedling recovery, control the temperature at 20-25°C during the day and around 15°C at night.
Plant adjustment
(1) Chemical regulation. Cutting-rooted tomato seedlings grow fast after planting and the stems are slightly thin. To make the stems thick and strong, apply 100-fold solution of Aifengling by irrigation at 250 grams per plant.
(2) Pruning. Adopt the single-stem pruning method and promptly remove newly sprouted side branches. Pruning should be carried out on sunny days to prevent plant wounds from being infected by pathogens.
(3) Timely fruit thinning. After flowering and fruit setting, select and retain 30-40 evenly sized fruits in each cluster, and thin out the remaining young fruits.
(4) Timely vine dropping. In the solar greenhouse, the southern plants should be dropped once every 7-10 days. On sunny days, drop the vines once every 10-15 days, so that the growing tip of the plant is always in a slope shape that is low in the south and high in the north, which is beneficial for the plant to receive light. Each time the vines are dropped, the leaves below the bottom fruits should be removed to facilitate ventilation between plants. The dropped stems and vines should be coiled into rings or placed in the same direction, supported with short bamboo poles, and the dropped stems, vines and fruits tied well with plastic rope, so that they are about 20 cm from the ground. Vine dropping should be carried out on sunny afternoons, when the main stems and vines are more flexible and not easy to break.
Do a good job of field sanitation management. Promptly clean up pruned side branches, old and diseased leaves, and removed weeds out of the greenhouse, keep the field clean, and eliminate sources of diseases and pests.