Application of protective screens for growing tomatoes in open ground

Abstract

Data are given from laboratory and field experiments carried out in 2011-2015 on studying the effectiveness of protective screens used for growing tomatoes under various conditions of open ground. Commercial outdoor tomato production in Siberia is practically absent due to high risks bound up with growing conditions. The region needs the development of technologies for outdoor growing warm-weather vegetable crops to be protected from unfavorable environmental impacts during the growing period. A widely-accepted method for protecting plants from late frosts by isolating them from the environment solves only a part of task that is lengthening spring-summer period for early-ripening varieties. But the first autumn frosts and other extreme events (fog, hail, cold dew or anthropogenic emissions) kill almost all unripe plants, or non-harvested crop. A distinctive feature of this research project is a possibility to protect plants during the entire growing period from unfavorable environmental impacts, and minimize time needed to respond to such environmental changes. With that, the protective function does not limit natural pollination of plants or access to them for watering, cultivating and harvesting that determines conditions for further mechanization of process operations.