Abstract:
Tomato is the world’s largest vegetable crop. It is one of the most important
vegetable crops cultivated for its fleshy fruits and it is considered as important
commercial and dietary vegetable crop. The average productivity of tomato in our
country is nearly 158q per hectare. Its successful production in the tropics is,
however, constrained by environmental variations especially under open field
conditions. The rising temperatures and carbon dioxide concentration and uncertainty
in rainfall associated with climate change may have serious direct and indirect
consequences on crop production and hence food security.
Objective of the study were Modeling of growth and yield of tomato and the
impact of climate change based on projected climate change scenarios using DSSAT
4.5 model and the impact of climate change will be studied based on projected
climatic scenarios (RCP.2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5). The field was designed as spilt plot
under 3 growing situations (S1-poly house, S2-rain shelter, S3-Open condition) at
Central Nursery, Vellanikkara. The date of planting was on 2014 December 1st, 10th,
2015 January 10th and 20th. The variety chosen was Anagha.
The date of transplanting and growing environment had a significant effect on
the various morphological, Phenological and yield parameters. Then greatest height
was obtained by polyhouse (251.7cm) on 01 December 2014.The greatest biomass
accumulation (2.23 t ha-1) inside the polyhouse on 10 December 2014 and 10 January
2015. The crop transplanted in polyhouse on 01 December 2014 had the longest
duration of 114 days. Maximum LAI was recorded in the crop transplanted inside the
polyhouse, rain shelter (20 January 2015) and open field (10 December 2014).
Highest yield 111.5 t ha-1 in the crop transplant inside polyhouse on 01 December
2014.
DSSAT model was validated and gave good RMSE values. The results also
showed that the effect of minimum temperature would drastically reduce the yield.
The increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration is likely to have some positive effect
on yield, but the effect is not significant compared to the negative impact of rise in
temperature. The yield of tomato (Anagha) will be reduced considerably due to
climate change.