GROWTH AND YIELD OF TOMATO (Solanum lycopersicum (L.) Kart) AS INFLUENCED BY FERTILISERS AND LIGHT INTENSITY

Abstract

Tomato is a source of dietary lycopene but its Fruit Yield (FY) is low due to declining Soil Fertility (SF), and Light Intensity (LI) affects its growth. Farmers rely on mineral fertilisers to improve SF, which could be scarce. Organic Fertilisers (OF) improve SF, while regulation of LI could be deployed to improve FY. However, there is insufficient information on application of OF and LI regulation in tomato production. Therefore, effects of OF and LI regulation on growth and yield of tomato were investigated. In pots, commercially produced OF (I, II, III) at 60 (T1, T2, T3) and at 120 kg N/ha (T4, T5, T6), urea (60 kg N/ha)+single super phosphate (35 kg P2O5)+murate of potash (30 kg K2O/ha) (T7) and urea (60 kg N/ha) (T8) were mixed with 10 kg soil arranged in Completely Randomised Design-CRD in four replicates. Unamended soil served as control (T9). Seedlings of Tomato Varieties-TV: Ibadan Local (IL), UC82B and Roma VF (RVF) were transplanted into pots. On the field (40,000 plants/ha), the treatments were arranged in Randomised Complete Block Design (RCBD) in triplicate. In another experiment, TV were transplanted into pots (CRD, R=5) and field (RCBD, R=3) and placed under different LI: [897.89 (L1, control), 673.70 (L2) and 450.44 (L3) Lux] for two weeks at vegetative (G1), flowering (G2), 50% fruiting (G3) and fruit maturity (G4) stages. The Plant Height-PH (cm), Leaf Area-LA (cm2) and FY were assessed. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA at α0.05. Fertilisers, TV and their interactions significantly affected PH, LA and FY. The PH, LA and FY (g/plant) ranged from 58.9±2.5 (T9) to 81.1±3.2 (T4), 245.1±6.5 (T9) to 467.2±8.4 (T3) and 8.7±1.1t/ha (T9) to 13.2±1.5t/ha (T4), respectively across TV. The IL had the highest PH (80.8±3.1), LA (471.6±11.5) and FY (13.8±1.5t/ha) in T4. On the field, UC82B had the highest PH (88.0±5.4) in T3 similar to IL (85.65±5.2) under T1 but least in IL (62.0±4.5) in T9. The IL had highest LA (510.1±13.0) in T4 but least (357.5±10.2) in UC82B under T9. The UC82B in T4 had the highest FY (21.4±3.5t/ha), while IL (11.8±2.2t/ha) had the least in T9. The IL at G3 had significantly the highest PH (68.3±4.5) under L3 but least in UC82B at G3 under L3 (60.5±4.0). The LA (487.4±10.4) of UC82B and RVF (458.2±9.5) at G3 under L3 were similar but significantly higher than IL (330.5±8.0) at G3 under L3. The FY (23.8±2.5g/plant) of UC82B at G1 under L2 was significantly higher than IL (22.1±2.2g/plant) under L2. The highest PH was obtained from IL at G3 under L2 (81.4±4.8), while least was from RVF at G3 under L2 (65.5±4.5). The LA of UC82B (387.4±12.8) was significantly higher than IL (315.4±10.5) and RVF (302.5±10.2) under L3 at G3. The FY of UC82B (25.8±2.3t/ha) was significantly higher than RVF (10.9±1.8t/ha) at G1 under L2. Commercially produced organic fertiliser I applied at 120 kg N/ha and light intensity at 673.70 Lux during vegetative stage improved growth and fruit yield of tomato variety UC82B.