INRA-Avignon organized a field visit to its tomato demonstration trial on July 5th 2018. The aim of the visit was to offer a comparison between conventional and IPM crop implementing innovations from EUCLID.
A tomato crop was grown in the spring 2018 at INRA-Avignon in four plastic-covered tunnels (each 128 m² in size) in conditions similar to those of local producers. Seedlings of a fleshy variety (Cauralina) grafted on rootstock cv 'Maxifort' were purchased from a local nursery and planted in all tunnels at a density of 1.9 plant per m². The soil was covered with plastic mulch and the plants were drip-irrigated. Throughout the growing season, fertilization was adjusted according to the PILazo® method and pollination was carried out by locally purchased bumblebees.

Different plant health management strategies were applied to distinguish 2 "conventional" tunnels and 2 "Euclid IPM" tunnels where three EUCLID innovations were implemented. Soil amendments were carried out with either 1 kg/m² of compost (designed by ANT) applied before plantation on half of the surface of each "EUCLID IPM" tunnel or with Binab PSG (designed by Binab) applied as drench at a rate of 0.2 g/plant on the other half of the tunnel surface. In addition, plants were sprayed three times with the foliar fertilizer CALIFOL (designed by ANT).

A 6-7% increase in plant development was observed in the "Euclid IPM" tunnels, compared to the "Conventional" tunnels, suggesting that both ANT's compost and Binab PSG may have a Biostimulant effect. At the harvest of the first flower truss, an increase was also observed in the number of fruits (19%) and in fruit weight (14%). An artificial inoculation was carried out on all plants to start a severe powdery mildew epidemic in the 4 tunnels. In presence of ANT's compost, the severity of disease was reduced by 35-60%.