Growth, Fruit Characteristics and Seed Yield of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) in Response to Fertilizer Application

Abstract

Background: Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) is a staple fruit vegetable, one of the most important vegetables worldwide. There is high demand for tomato planting materials (seeds) in Nigeria. Methods: Experiment was conducted at the Directorate of University Farms, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Nigeria (7°, 25'N, 3°25'E, 100 m above sea level) to examine growth, fruit characteristics as well as seed yield of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill), cultivar Roma vf in response to fertilizer treatments. Fertilizer types used were, NPK 15:15:15 (300 kg/ha), Poultry manure (10 t/ha), combination of N. P. K 15:15:15 (150 kg/ha) + Poultry manure (5 t/ha) and a control. Treatments were laid out in randomized complete block design with three replicates. Data were taken on number of leaves, plant height, leaf area, number of branches, number of flowers, number of fruits, fruit length, fruit width, fruit yield, unit fruit weight, number and weight of seeds per fruit. Fruit characteristics were correlated with seed yield to determine the relationship between them. Data were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and means were separated with least significant difference (LSD 0.05). Result: Tomato fruits from plots that received a combination of N. P. K 15:15:15 (150 kg/ha) and Poultry manure had higher fruit yield (5 t/ha) and by inference higher number of seeds, compared with the control. Correlation of fruit weight with number of seeds showed that the higher the fruit weight, the higher the number of seeds per fruit. Fruit length had positive correlation with plant height and fruit diameter. Number of leaves determines fruit weight which invariably determines number and weight of seeds. High number of leaves resulted in low seed weight