Abstract
The tomato is the one of the most famous crops in Pakistan. It is used and consumed as fresh as well as in processed form. Its botanical name is Solanum lycopersicon Mill. The proposed study had been conducted in the year 2017-2018 in order to find the best combination of water soluble NPK fertilizers as compared to control. Five different types of water soluble fertilizers were collected from different sources and were applied at 5% concentration during the entire growing period of the tomato crop. The experiment was designed using Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with five treatments and three replications of each. Different vegetative, reproductive and bio-chemical parameters were recorded and analyzed statistically at 5% level of significance. The treatments were compared using LSD test. It was concluded that different NPK water soluble fertilizers showed variation in physical and bio chemical parameters in tomato plants as compared to control. The plants showed variation in plant height, No. of fruit per plant, fruit yield per hectare, Individual fruit weight, fruit weight per plant, No. of diseased fruit per plant, date of first harvest, Fruit color Fruit length (cm), fruit size (cm), fruit firmness, total NPK contents, vitamincmg Chlorophyll concentration, pH, (TSS), Electricity conductivity (EC) and Titratable acidity Among all the water soluble treatments, the T3 treatment (WSF 20:20:20) yielded the comparatively better results as compared to other WSF treatments. So it was concluded that T3 was the recommended water soluble fertilizer for tomato.
Introduction
Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum Mill.) is considered as domesticated plant of Western and South America (Ali et al., 2012). Tomato ranks second after the potato crop in family Solanaceae while ranks first in term of processed crop. It is an annual vegetable crop grown in summer season. Temperature of 25-280C is favorable temperature for its growth and development (Ejaz et al., 2011). In Pakistan, spring and autumn crops are cultivated twice a year (Naz et al., 2011). China, India, Turkey, Egypt, Italy and Iran are main producer of tomato crop (Ali et al., 2013). Tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum Mill.) is a rich source of vitamins as well as antioxidants. It does not form acid stones and possesses a great amount of citric acid but forms alkaline, when enters into bloodstream. It also works as a liver cleanser when used in green vegetable juices.
About 11 million acres in the world are under cultivation of tomato. India and China contribute about 40 percent in global production of tomato. Its demand is increasing with growing population of the world. Currently, Pakistan is standing at the 30th position while the United States of America is at the 1st and China is at the 2nd rank. (GOP, 2015). In Pakistan per acre yield of tomato is very low as compared to the yield of the world. It currently produces 4.00 tons per acre while the global production of tomato is 43 tons per acre. The maximum yield has been achieved in Belgium which is 202 tons per acre. Tomato (Solanum lycopersicon Mill.) is an herbaceous plant. It is a very important cash crop for small as well as bourgeois farmers and cultivated on wide area all over the world. It is a good source of vitamins as well as minerals (GOP, 2015). On the globe, annual production of fresh tomato is accounted for about 159 million tons. While, about quarter of these 159 million tons is used for the processing industry, which makes this crop the world’s leading vegetable crop for processing.
Tomato (Solanum lycopersicon Mill.) production in Pakistan was 530 thousand tones during the year 2015. The top 8 producing countries account for 74.2% of the world’s yearly production. Tomato crop enjoys a huge export potential owing to its need in the international market. Tomatoes are exported to a number of countries including Afghanistan, Iran, U.A.E, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and India. Afghanistan as well as Iran and UAE are central market hubs for tomatoes’ export from Pakistan. Pakistan is capable of increasing its share in these markets (GOP, 2015). The area, production and average yield of tomato in Pakistan have been getting varied in different eras. Since the year 2000-01 to the year 2009-10, area under tomato crop has been expanded from 27.9 to 50 thousand hectares and yield has jumped from 268.8 tons to 476.8 thousand tons. The current national yield of tomato crop is based on ten year’s average (10.1 tons/ha) which is very low. To get high yield, vigorous yielding varieties and improved production technologies should have to be adopted.
The Province Baluchistan is leading province in tomato cultivation annually with an average area of 18.1 thousand hectares followed by KPK and Sindh with area of 15.6 and 10.7 thousand hectares, respectively (GOP, 2016). Low quality and low production of tomato is due to unbalanced application of micro and macro nutrients. The main function of the nutrients is to help the synthesis of chlorophyll and to activate the process of photosynthesis. Micro and macro nutrients are required to tomato crop in specific dose for proper growth and development (Rub and Haq, 2012). To overcome this production deficiency an experiment was arranged to find out best dose of water soluble N, P and K fertilizer. So that the foliar application of soluble fertilizers NPK in different doses is needed to examine to attain a good crop establishment, growth, quality fruit production and healthy yield of tomato crop. It can be beneficial for earning high market price. Get the full articles by following the link Int. J. Agron. Agri. Res. 18(1), 10-18. January 2021.
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