Uso de leguminosas “companheiras” na cultura do tomateiro : aspectos qualitativos e produtivos

Abstract

Having great relevance in the productive scenario and a great nutritional value, the tomato is an important crop and widely consumed both nationally and internationally. With the constant use of intercropping practices in order to streamline the use of nutrients, including nitrogen, this work aimed to adopt the use of companion leguminous plants such as jack beans, pigeon peas, crotalaria and forage peanuts for tomato cultivation and their relationship with qualitative and productive factors of tomato. The experimental design used was the DBC with 5 treatments and 4 replications. Productivity, microbial activity by CO2 emission, °Brix, titratable acidity, lycopene and β-carotene levels were evaluated, in addition to colorimetric analyses. The results showed that among the companion plants, pigeonpea had the highest microbial activity due to the highest CO2 emissions. Lycopene and β-carotene contents were not influenced by treatments. Tomatoes intercropped with pigeon pea and sunn hemp showed higher °Brix values. Companion plants promoted higher levels of acidity in tomato fruits. For colorimetric values, tomatoes only showed results for the hue angle (Hue), with jack bean, pigeonpea, control and forage peanut showing a tendency to yellowish color and sunn hemp had a greater tendency to red. Forage peanut promoted the highest productivity among the analyzed species.