Great Basin Fresh Market Tomato Trial

View the project final report

Commodities

• Vegetables: tomatoes

Practices

• Education and Training: farmer to farmer, technical assistance
• Pest Management: row covers (for pests)
• Production Systems: organic agriculture

PURPOSE OF PROJECT

The purpose of this project is to test two hypothesis:

1) Growing tomatoes under high tunnels reduces the incidence of Beet Curly Top Virus(BCTV) in organic fresh market tomatoes,

2) Use of locally developed BCTV resistant seeds reduces the incidence of BCTV in high tunnel and field grown organic fresh market tomatoes.

ACTIVITIES PLANNED

Lattin Farms and Mewaldt Organics will cooperate in a research trial comparison of organic fresh market tomatoes to determine the effect on BCTV of utilizing selected seeds from Mewaldt Organics which appear to have resistance to BCTV. Trials will be conducted in open fields and under high tunnels utilizing tests of commercially available varieties known to be susceptible and the resistant locally developed varieties. Several replications of numerous varieties are planned.

Objectives:

1)The Principle Investigators (PIs) and Technical Advisor (TA) will design a scientifically valid experiment to determine significant differences in infection rates and production of fresh market tomatoes due to Beet Curly Top Virus (BCTV).

2) In the 2012 growing season, the PIs of this project will plant, grow, evaluate and compare three varieties of open pollinated, locally developed tomatoes and three varieties of commercially available fresh market tomatoes in high tunnels for resistance to BCTV.

3) During the 2012 growing season, the PIs of this project will plant, grow, evaluate and compare three varieties of open pollinated, locally developed tomatoes and three varieties of commercially available fresh market tomatoes in the field for resistance to BCTV.

4) During the 2012 growing season, the PIs of the project, with the TA, will hold mid-trial and late-trial field days for western Nevada farmers to explain the purpose of the experiments, increase awareness of the fresh market tomato market and increase the number of contacts of farmers currently and potentially growing fresh market tomatoes.

5) By the end December 2012, the PIs will compile and analyze the data collected from the high house and field experiments. The data will be analyzed using standard statistical techniques (ANOVA) in cooperation with the TA.

6) By the end of February 2013, the PIs, in cooperation with the TA, will write and publish the results of the experiments in a University of Nevada Cooperative Extension (UNCE) Fact Sheet that will be distributed to all local farmers currently engaged in vegetable production and made available to other interested producers via the UNCE website.

7) During March 2013, the PIs and TA will present the results and distribute the fact sheet at the Nevada Small Farm Conference to increase the awareness of the potential of small scale, fresh market tomato production in western Nevada and increase the knowledge levels of the attending producers concerning tomato variety selection and production practices.

8) In October 2012, the PIs/TA will develop, distribute and evaluate a formal survey of all local farmers growing fresh market tomatoes to measure the success of the project. The information collected will be provided to the Western SARE administration in the form of a final report by December 2012.