Coconut Coir Medium for Tomato Transplant Production

Summary

Peat [70% peat + 30% vermiculite (v/v/)] has long been the primary growing medium in standard vegetable transplant production. However, interest has increased in the use of coir (coconut pith) as an alternative vegetable transplant medium because of favorable physico-chemical properties such us high water holding capacity, low bulk density and high potassium content. Sixteen different transplant media formulations (v/v) were tested in a mixture component experiment with tomato, using coir and peat as organic components and vermiculite and perlite as inorganic components. Transplant growth was evaluated after 4, 5, and 6 weeks by growth analysis and at 6 weeks transplant quality parameters (e.g. shoot/root dry weight, leaf area, stem diameter, height, etc.) were collected. Coir grown tomato