Study of the Effectiveness of Fertilization Treatments in the Management of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L) Virus Diseases in South Togo

Abstract

Faced with the problem of providing a balanced mineral nutrition to tomato plants in order to strengthen them to better resist viruses, this work proposed to study the effectiveness of fertilizers in the sustainable management of these in South Togo. Five fertilizers were tested on five tomato cultivars namely Caraïbo, Mongal F1, Petomech, Tropimech and Adakamenou during two great rainy seasons (GRS) of 2019 and 2020 following the split-plot design with fertilizers in main plots and cultivars in secondary plots. Weekly observation of virus incidence and severity according to a rating scale (1-5) indicated a very highly significant effect (P < 0.001) under the cultivars for both experiments. Caraïbo, Mongal F1 and Adakamenou were the least susceptible cultivars to virus diseases. Fertilizers only significantly impacted cultivar susceptibility to virus diseases in GRS 2019 where virus disease incidence was low and statistically identical (22.80%; 22.67%) under organic T2 manure (10 t ha-1 of manure) and low dose organo-mineral T3 manure (38 kg N, 15 kg P2O5, 15 kg K2O ha-1 and 5 t ha-1 of manure). The effect of fertilizer-cultivar interactions on virus severity was significant (P < 0.05) in 2020 and very highly significant (P < 0.001) in 2019. The organomineral manure used at a low dose seems to be the best strategy for reinforcing the obtaining of satisfactory fruit yields.