Effects of Salinity and Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Interations on Morphology of 10 Varieties of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

Abstract

Solanum lycopersicum L. (Tomato) is one of the plants commonly grown for its edible fruits all over the world. It is an important component of the average Nigerian meal. The present study aimed at investigating the effects of salinity and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi interactions on morphology of 10 varieties of Solanum lycopersicum L. Ten different varieties of tomato were exposed to three different treatments, salt and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi treatment, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi treatment and sterile soil treatment which served as the control. All data collected were subjected to Analysis of Variance (One way-ANOVA).The results of this study showed that effects of the interactions of salinity and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) differs across varieties of tomatoes with significant differences occurring in some varieties; low or no effect in others across other varieties when comparing growth parameters at p<0.05.Tomato plants grown in salt + arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi had the highest plant height, leaf area, stem diameter, number of leaves, number of flowers and highest fresh weight of fruits across most of the varieties compared to other treatments. However, tomatoes subjected to only AMF treatment had the least performance across all the varieties. Thus, from the results of this study, it could be concluded that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi has the potential to improve tomato plants tolerance to salinity.