2024 Volume 47 Pages 89-112
Food and nutritional security is poised to become a significant challenge in meeting the needs of a population, exacerbate by climate change and limited agricultural land. Therefore, it is imperative to explore alternative methods for crop cultivation with efficient management practices. Additionally, ensuring a consistent and adequate water supply remains a critical concern, which can be addressed through the use of mulch during crop cultivation. Furthermore, micronutrient deficiencies, particularly boron, can lead to issues such as flower dropping and fruits malformation, resulting in reduced yields. Hence, a pot experiment was conducted at the Horticulture Farm of Shere-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh, from October 2019 to March 2020 to assess the morpho-physiological and yield response of cherry tomato under soilless crop cultivation system, considering the influence of boron and different mulch materials. The experiment comprised two factors: Factor A included: three types of mulch, namely M 0 = No mulch, M 1 = rice straw and M 2 = Black polythene, while Factor B: uncompressed four doses of Boron (B) fertilizer, denoted as B 1 = 0.5 ppm, B 2 = 1.5 ppm, B 3 = 2.5 ppm and B 4 = 3.5 ppm. This resulted in a total of 12 treatment combinations, arranged in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications. The results revealed significant variations in the pheno- morphological characteristics, photosynthetic pigment content, total soluble solid (TSS), and yield traits of cherry tomatoes, significantly varied due to the different mulch materials and foliar application of boron. Specifically, plants grown with black polythene mulch and treated with 2.5 ppm of boron (M 2 B 3 ) exhibited superior performance across these traits. In terms of economic return, the same combination appeared to be the most promising, yielding higher productivity (3.31 kg/plant) and a favorable benefit-cost ratio (3.36) for cherry tomato production.
