Datasets of the environmental factors and management practices of the smallholder tomato production systems in the Colombian Andes

Datasets presented here were employed in the main work “Understanding the heterogeneity of smallholder production systems in the Andean tropics – The case of Colombian tomato growers” Gil, et al., 2019. In this region, tomato crop is developed under two technological levels: low, carried out under open field (OF) conditions and, a high, by using greenhouses (GH). For OF, data belong to five municipalities of the Guanentá province (Santander department), while for GH, data belong to five municipalities of the Alto Ricaurte province (Boyacá department). The data presented here includes information on soil parental materials and climate variables (averages ± standard deviations) relevant from the agricultural point of view, which were calculated from historical climate series. Soils natural fertility data, obtained by sampling the production areas, are also presented. After filtering the data, 67 samples were obtained for OF and 70 for the GH. For GH, a dataset with the results of 38 soil samples taken inside greenhouses were paired with the results of samples taken outside these greenhouses in uncropped areas. In the case of these soil analyses, the data correspond to tables with the results reported by the laboratory for both, chemical and physical variables, for each location in which soil samples were taken. In this work, the main dataset is one that contains the inputs of fertilizers and water, and the corresponding yields of tomato production cycles managed by local growers. This information was collected through two data collection tools: surveys (SVY) to growers about these aspects in their last production cycle, and through detailed follow-ups of selected production cycles (FWU). For the OF, we collected data from 71 cycles through the surveys and 22 through the follow-ups, while for the GH, information from 138 to 38 tomato cycles was collected through surveys and follow-ups, respectively. A table with the results aggregated by tomato cycle is attached.