RESPONSE OF SOME TOMATO VARIETIES TO WATER STRESS AT DIFFERENT FRUITING STAGES

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the Central Research Farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU), Dhaka during October 2018 to March 2019 to study the water stress in different tomato variety. The experiment consisted of two factors: varieties as V 1 =Mintoo HYV, V 2 =BARI Tomato-4 variety and V 3 =BARI Tomato-14 variety, and Different levels of water stress as treatments T 0 : Control (no stress), T 1 : Stress at early fruiting stage, T 2 : Stress at mid fruiting stage and T 3 : Stress at late fruiting stage. The two factors experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. For plant height at 30 DAT for the variety V 2

gives the highest plant height (47.58 cm) and lowest for V 1 (31.83 cm). The maximum leaf area was recorded at flowering stage for treatment V 1 T 0 . At flowering stage of 30, 45 and 60 DAF days after flowering, the highest SPAD values (62.12, 59.83 and 62.7, respectively) was obtained from V 1 . At 45 DAF T 2 shows the highest SPAD value (61.87). % Moisture of was drastically reduced due to water stress as V 1 with the control treatment shows highest moisture level of 94.67% and for V 3 with the treatment of late fruiting stage water stress gives the least moisture level of 84%. The highest dry matter content of leaf in plant. V 1 T 0 with the control treatment shows highest dry matter content of 4.57% and for V 2 T 2 with the treatment of late fruiting stage water stress gives the least dry matter content of 2.60%. Highest number of fruit drops due to early fruiting stage water stress as for V 1 T 1 36 fruits drops but its shows less effect for late fruiting stage water stress. The highest weight of individual fruit 67.83 g was found from V 3 T 0 . The highest yield plant -1 (2.15 kg) was recorded from V 3 T 0 , while the lowest yield (1.16 kg) was found from V 1 T 1 . The highest fruit yield (89.29 t ha -1 ) was recorded from V 3 T 0 , while the lowest fruit yield (16.83 t ha ) was found from V 1 T 1 . Based on the findings of the present study, it may be reported that water stress has remarkable influence on morpho-physiology and yield attributes of tomato. Overall performance of BARI Tomato-14 indicates it can be cultivated without application of sufficient irrigation.

T 0 T 3 -1