Effect of Foliar Spray of Boron on the Growth and Quality of Exotic Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) in Bangladesh

Abstract

The experiment was conducted at Horticulture Farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh during the period from October 2016 to April 2017. The experiment was conducted to assess the effect of two factors, for example; I, two levels of foliar spray of boron as:100 ppm boric acid (B1) and 200 ppm boric acid (B2) in relation to a control and II, three different tomato cultivars/lines as: L1: Exotic Tomato Line-1, L2: Exotic Tomato Line-2, L3: BARI Tomato-15. The two factorial experiments were laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. Fruit setting (56.73%), yield (64.89 t/ha) and total soluble solid (TSS) (4.3%) were considerably higher in B1 and low in B2. Whereas, significantly higher yield (79.87 t/ha) was recorded in L3 in in comparison to L1. Considering quality parameters, Vitamin C (20 mg) was the highest in L3 whereas TSS (4.58%) was the highest in L1. In interaction effect, the highest yield (85 t/ha) was obtained from B1L3 and the lowest (31.23 t/ha) in B2L1. The present study suggest to cultivate BARI Tomato-15, but other two exotic lines adapted well and showed good performance in terms of yield and quality parameters.