A COMPARISON OF ORGANIC AND CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS FOR TOMATO PRODUCTION

Summary

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is one of the most popular and versatile vegetables in the world, and organic production with a high yield and desirable quality is a target of many producers. The effect of four different fertilizers (chemical, municipal solid waste compost, cattle manure, and spent mushroom compost) on four commercial tomato cultivars (Redstone, Flat, Peto Pride and Chief) was assessed in this research. The highest yield was obtained with the Chief cultivar when fertilized with chemical fertilizer and the lowest value was obtained with Peto Pride fertilized with 20 tonnes per hectare (t/ha) of cow manure. The difference between the two classes of fertilizers (organic and chemical) was not very high so that organic fertilizers are competitive and may be a suitable replacement for chemical fertilizer. According to our results, to achieve maximum yields with organic fertilizers, 20 t/ha of spent mushroom compost can be recommended for the Redstone cultivar, 30 t/ha of cow manure for Flat, 300 t/ha of municipal solid waste compost for Peto Pride, and 300 t/ha of municipal solid waste compost or 20 t/ha of spent mushroom compost can be recommended for the Chief cultivar. These recommended organic fertilizing regimes achieved cultivar yields comparable to the chemical fertilizer treatments, achieving a yield of 98.4% for Redstone, 99.5% for Flat, 97.6% for Peto Pride, and 95.7% for Chief.