I have worked on a tomato variety trial and it might not be possible to harvest tomato plants and oven-dry them to determine above ground dry matter due to too many tomato plants. I am wondering if it is also possible to calculate Harvest Index by using fresh weight, considering that we also consume tomato fruits in fresh.
Can you take several samples, each with a known number of plants and the area they occupied, measure fresh and dry mass and multiply up to the crop level?
it can be different, because, the fresh/dry ratio change during season and harvest time.
i calculate it in my research on dill. it's tolerance was about 3.5%.
HI units are functional to their use as marketable units. If the destiny of ypur tomatoes is dry fruit one you should take dried fruit mass relative to plant dry mass. Grains are meausred in dry basis but tomatoes HI are given in fruit fresh weight per plant fresh weight. Pruning and management with chemicals like off-shoot-O modify sensibly HI, as in http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11541684
thanks for your suggestion.
Due to limited time and labor with a huge number of tomato varieties (60 cvs * 8 rep) tested, it might not be possible to take samples for oven-dry; it will be also energy demanding. I agree that water content differs between one plant to another and times of harvesting.
concerning the suggestion of Dr. Guido Bongi, it would be one hand plausible that HI calculation is based on the marketable units that fresh weight of fruits and biomass are used for determination. I am also wondering if it is always compared in the same basis (dry or fresh) of fruits and plant?
In another hand, I used to work with rice. Rice grain after harvesting is usually converted into 13% moisture content to calculate yield because rice grain with 13% moisture can be stored and sold in the market. I am not sure if the grain and shoot are calculated based on dry weight or 13% water content for rice HI assessment?
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