Biostimulants’ influence on tomato fruit characteristics at conventional and low-input NPK regime
ABSTRACT Plant biostimulants are commercial products based on different chemical substances used to enhance plant growth and productivity. The effects of biostimulants, Megafol and Viva, with different dominant compositions (amino acids and humic acids) on two tomato cultivars (cv. Gravitet F1 and cv. Minaret F1) exposed to conventional and low-input macronutrient nutrition were investigated. Application of both biostimulants positively affected yield at conventional nutrition. In low-input nutrition variant, biostimulant application prevented yield loss only in cv. Minaret F1. Inter-cultivar differences were noticed in fruit characteristics (total phenol content, total flavonoids content and total antioxidative capacity) where application of biostimulants leads to opposite results in the examined cultivars. We considered the possibility of biostimulant usage as an effective nutritional addition for overcoming the problem of excessive fertilisation.