Mulch as a technique to improve the production of cherry tomato in conventional planting system

The cherry tomato (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme) is one of the most common crops in the world, being an important commercial source for small and medium farmers, and an excellent nutritional vegetable, containing a high number of nutrients, such as lycopene, vitamin C and phenolic acids. Considering that its fruits are the most important and commercialized part of the plant , the non-commercialized part can be used as a dead organic material for the soils cover, characterizing the mulch, which serves as an excellent conservationist method and important tool for degraded horticulture areas. The main objective of the present article was to verify the production of cherry tomato in the conventional planting system, with added mulch or without it, comparing the leaf area, plant height and fruit weight in both systems. The obtained results showed that mulch might be an efficient technique to improve the productive indexes of the cherry tomatoes, significantly affecting the growth indicators, which are directly responsible for increasing productivity