GROWING CHERRY TOMATO VARIETIES UNDER VARIABLE FREQUENCY OF DRIP IRRIGATION

Abstract

A pot experiment was conducted on the rooftop at the Academic Building, Shere-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207 during November 2019 to March

2020 to evaluate the influences of irrigation frequency on the growth and yield

of

cherry tomato varieties under drip irrigation system. Four cherry tomato varieties and three levels of drip irrigation frequencies were used in this experiment. The cherry tomato varieties were: SAU Cherry Tomato-1 (V 1 ), Crimson Red (V 2 ), Australian Cherry (V 3 II

), Sutton Cherry (V 4 ); and drip irrigation frequencies were: Once a day (I 1 ), Twice a day (I 2 ) and Thrice a day (I 3 ). All the drip irrigation treatments have received the same amount of water with different frequency of application. The experiment was outlined in the Completely Randomized Design with five replications. Significant variation was found with the treatments. Among the varieties, the maximum plant height (153.30 cm), flower number (995.20/plant), fruit number (645.50/plant) and fruit yield (3.37 Kg/plant) were found from V 1 while the minimum fruit yield (1.67 Kg/plant) was found from V 3 . Irrigation once a day (I 1 ) gave the best results for growth and yield related parameters than other applications. The highest fruit yield (4.44 Kg/plant) was found from combination V 1 I 1 and lowest yield (1.06 Kg/plant) was found from the combination V 3 I 3 . In view of the overall performances, SAU Cherry Tomato-1(V 1 ) with irrigation once a day (I 1 ) provided the best results for the growth and yield attributes.