MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND YIELD OF TOMATO AS AFFECTED BY NITROGEN AND IRRIGATION LEVELS

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the Crop Physiology and Ecology research farm in Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur during the period from November 2011 to March 2012 to study the effect of different levels of nitrogen and irrigation on the growth and yield of tomato. Four levels of nitrogen (N) viz., 0, 90, 120, and 150kgNha’! and three levels of irrigation (I) viz., 10, 15, and 22 mm were used in 36 combinations. The experiment was laid out in two factors RCBD with three replications. The size of unit plot was 1.5m x 1.5m and the date of planting was 22nd November 2011. Different level of nitrogen showed significant variations in respect of all the characters studied. Plant grown with 150kg Nha’ gave the highest plant height, total number of leaves, days to first flowering, flower cluster, number of fruits per plant, individual fruit weight, fruit length, fruit diameter, branch number, secondary branch number, total dry matter content, days to 50% flowering, fruit yield (80 tha’). Plants grown with 22mm gave the highest fruit yield. Combined effect of nitrogen and irrigation levels exhibited significant variations on plant height, number of leaves per plant, days to first flowering, number of fruits per cluster, weight of individual fruit. Highest total fruit yield (82 tha’') was obtained from the treatment combination of 150kgNha‘' with 22mm water application