The Effect of Mixed Cultivation Using Companion Plants on the Growth and Quality of Cherry Tomatoes

Background and objective: Recent urban agriculture meets the needs of urban residents that safety and avoids using chemical pesticides. This study was conducted to identify various factors of companion planting affecting the growth of cherry tomatoes, which will promoting urban agriculture by improving socioeconomic satisfaction with gardening activities through quality. Methods: Four types of companion plants such as marigold, zinnia, spearmint and basil, that have a companion effect with growth, sugar content, and vitamin C content. We obtained the mean and standard deviation and tested the significance at a 95% confidence level (p < .05) with Duncan s multiple range test after one way ANOVA and MANOVA. Results: Compared to monoculture of cherry tomatoes, the plant growth in the treatment plots with companion planting showed a significant increase overall(p < .05), but there wasn t interaction effect among companion plants, planting ratio and type. As for the absorption of inorganic components, the companion planting showed better absorption than monoculture of cherry tomatoes, as favorable growth, and there was an interaction effect among the individual factors. The sugar content was higher than the standard sugar content of 5.8 brix in both the treatment plots at the control, and vitamin C content was higher than the control at 26.27mg/100g in all treatment plots, but there wasn t statistically significant difference. The soil pH in the cultivation plot ranges from 5.5 to 9.0 and was weakly alkaline in all treatment plots except zinnia, showing low contents of phosphoric acid, exchageable potassium, calcium and magnesium. Conclusion: This study was conducted to analyze various factors such as the growth of cherry tomatoes, contents of inorganic components, sugar content and vitamin C content of fruits, and soil analysis according to companion plants, planting type, and planting ratio. We will study sugar content by measuring the change in growth every phase of fruits.