THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT SEEDLING PRODUCTION SYSTEMS ON QUALITY OF TOMATO PLANTLETS

Successful vegetable cultivation begins with quality seedlings. Some quantitative parameters such as stem diameter (g), seedling dry weight (g) and specific leaf area (cm 2 g –1 ) are used to determine the quality of seedlings. In this study, the effects of different seedling production systems (traditional and floating system), organic fertilizers (M – manure, B – blood fertilizer from slaughterhouse and O – commercial organic fertilizer) and seed tray cell size (ST1 – 2.2 × 2.2 cm and ST2 – 3.1 × 3.1 cm) on seedling quality of tomato, were investigated. It was determined that the most effective results in applications of BST1 and MST2, were obtained in terms of leaf dry weight (0.39 g), stem dry weight (0.15–0.16 g) and root dry weight (0.10–0.11 g). At the end of the study, the big celled seed tray, blood and manure fertilizers were significantly higher (P ˂ 0.01) than grown in the small celled seed tray and control plants.