Abstract

Experiments were located at Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority, Ejiba and Horticultural Section College of Agriculture, Kabba in 2014 cropping season to investigate the effect of different spacing and urea application rates on fruit nutrient composition, growth and fruit yield of tomato in derived savanna vegetation of Nigeria. Field experiments were arranged in a randomized complete block design in factorial fashion with three replications. The row spacing were 75 × 40 cm (33,333 plant·ha-1, 75 × 50 cm (26,666 plant·ha-1) and 75 × 60 cm (22,222 plant·ha-1) while the urea rates comprised control (0 kg urea·ha-1), 54.3 and 108.6 kg urea·ha-1. Growth and yield parameters taken were as follows: average plant height, stem girth, leaf area (m2) and yield per land area. Data were collected from ten randomly selected plants in each plot. The data were statistically analyzed using GENSTAT. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to find out the significance of variation among the treatments while the significant difference between mean treatments was separated using least significance Difference at 5% level of probability. The result obtained from this study indicated that urea application and spacing affected significantly growth parameters of tomato and yield per land area. It could be concluded that there was a significant increase in plant height, number of leaves, number of fruits per plant and final fruit weight of tomato as a result of urea fertilizer application at the rate of 108.6 kg urea/ha. However, this was not significantly better than plots with urea application at 54.8 kg/ha in both Ejiba and Kabba. Row spacing of 75 × 50 cm showed better performance in number of fruit and fruit yield per plots. Farmers in Ejiba and Kabba should apply urea at the rate of 54.8 kg per hectare and plant the crop at a row spacing of 75 × 50 cm for optimum yield and for a more profitable production of tomato.

Highlights

  • Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum) is one of the most important vegetables grown for their edible fruits

  • Tomato is cultivated in Nigeria with an annual production of six million tonnes [1]

  • Tomato is an excellent source of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants which help control cancer, health disease as well as improve the general health of man [2]

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Summary

Introduction

Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum) is one of the most important vegetables grown for their edible fruits. Tomato is an excellent source of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants which help control cancer, health disease as well as improve the general health of man [2]. Nitrogen is the most critical element of plant growth. Vegetables growth is affected differently by various N sources [3]. Seedling growth (fresh or dry weight) was always more in nitrate than various reduced N sources [4]. Urea appeared to be the best source which gave the highest dry matter yield when four nitrogen sources (NH4+, NH4OH, NO3− and urea) were compared [5]. Plant allocates different relative proportions of total N contents to leaves, stems and roots [6]. Large amount of N in the fertilizer reduces root infections [7]

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