Abstract:
As the vegetable cultivation in Sri Lanka is highly seasonal and mostly weather dependent, there is a surplus of vegetable production in favorable seasons and a deficit during off seasons. Tomato is owe of the most popular vegetable among the farmers owing to this potential incoiiie, even during tile off season. Meantime, tomato is an essential item in Sri Lankan diet, giving a year-round high demand. The amual requirement of tomato is net
Mainly by open field cultivations. But the tomato cultivation during the off season is low and difficult due to bad weather conditions.
According to Weerakkody c/ n/.,(200 I ), Controlled Environmental Agriculture (CEA) is a new demanding technology, which has been developed to minimize the infl uence of undesirable enviroilneblal conditions on crop production. Hydroponics, wh ich is commonly practiced under CEA, is a cultivation method which helps to obtain 8 od quality
Products with high yields. As sni I less cultivation is done under hydroponics, the growing
Medium plays an important role in prod\icing fruits with good qualities. However, the ideal growing media and other requirement for each crop grown ui1der protected environments in Sri Lanka have not been studied yet in detail (Dayananda and Wahundeniya, 200 I).
Coir dust is the most growing medium used in hydroponics in Sri Lanka. As coir dust is comparatively expensive and abundantly available on ly in coastal areas, using coir dust for hydroponics in up country, increases the cost of production. Accord ink to the Kularathne c/ ul., (2004) as an agricultural country, Sri Lanka produces number of agricultural wastes such as coir dust, paddy hush, refused tea, paddy straw, sugar cane trash etc., which could be used as pr›tential growing media. Therefore, refused tea is an alternat ive growing used ium which can be ‹ised ii\ ‹ip country areas easily, with a low cost. But, enough assessments have not been conducted yet in Sri Lanka relented to refused tea as a hydroponics growing iced iun . There Fore, It is study is an effort to assess the performances of refused rea as a growing mediun› for hydroponically grown tomato.
