EFFECT OF DISTANCE ON THE GROWTH AND YIELD PERFORMANCE OF SUMMER TOMATO UNDER MANGO BASED AGROFORESTRY SYSTEM

Abstract

An experiment was carried out at farmer‟s mango orchard in Sadar upazila of Dinajpur district under the supervision of Department of Agroforestry and Environment, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University (HSTU), Dinajpur, during March to July 2019 to evaluate the performance of summer tomato influenced by different distances from the base of the Mango tree. The experiment was conducted at ten years aged of Mango orchard (Mangifera indica). A popular tomato variety BARI Tomato-4 was selected as the experimental crop. The treatments of the experiment were T1= 45cm, T2= 85cm, T3= 125cm and T4= 165cm distance from tree base. All the intercultural operations were done 10 days before transplanting as per needed. Twenty six days old tomato seedlings were transplanted in the plots on 24 March 2019. The experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. The results of the research showed that the effect of various distances from mango tree base was significant in respect of plant height (cm), fruit weight plant-1 and fruit yield of tomato, respectively, price of tomato, green weight and dry weight. The highest yield (26.95 t/h) was found in case of longer distances from the Mango tree base (165cm) and the lower yield (18.57 t/h) was found in case of shorter distances from Mango tree base (45 cm). however, the other two distanced tomato plants from mango tree base (85 cm and 125 cm) also grow a considerable amount of tomato yield but degree of suitability will be as Long distance (165 cm) > Medium distances (125 cm and 85 cm) > Short distances (45 cm). Based on the finding it can be concluded that tomato (var. BARI-4) cultivation under the younger aged Mango tree (10 years) with longer distances from tree base is a good option to get both tomato and mango fruit in the same piece of land