Influence of Manuring on Growth and Yield of Tomato Varieties in Akure, a Rain Forest Zone of South West Nigeria

Abstract

Tomato a highly nutritious and income relevance crop. The optimum productivity is constrained by a number of factors such as soil fertility management. A field experiment was conducted at Teaching and Research Farm, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria between December 2012 to April 2013 (irrigated) and March – August 2013 (rainfed) to investigate the effect manuring on the growth and yield of tomato varieties. Four manuring sources (Organic, Organo-mineral, Urea and No fertilizer) and four tomato varieties (Beske, Ibadan local, Roma and UC) laid out as a randomized complete block design in a factorial arrangement and replicated three times. Results showed that manuring influenced on set of flowering in tomato, organic fertilizer prolonged day to anthesis (22.72 day) closely followed by organomineral (22.49 days) while control (no fertilizer) was earliest (20.88 days). Beske significantly showed earliness to flowering, Ibadan local and Roma were delayed but had similar flowering dates (P≤ 0.05). The varieties had distinct fruit yield responses to fertilizer application, fruit produced were in order of Beske, Ibadan local and UC (721.9;626.4) g;(683.6; 696.2) g; (550.0; 463.6) g (384.4; 431.5) g for rainfed and irrigation respectively. Varietal effect was significant on fruit yields for irrigated, Beske recorded heaviest fruit yield (6.03g) followed by Ibadan local (4.72), Roma (2.6) and UC (2.14). Harvested fruit among the varieties in both seasons were (3978.5t/ha;3484.9t/ha;1229.8t/ha and 985.2 t/ha) and (3947.2t/ha; 3452.8t/ha; 1197.8t/ha; 953.2t/ha) for Beske, Ibadan local, Roma and UC respectively. Fertilizer application were significant for both season on harvested fruits weight in magnitude order of Organomineral, organic fertilizer urea and control (3535.9;3503.9t/ha),organic fertilizer (2935.2;2903.2t/ha), Urea (2078.8;2047.4t/ha) and control (1128.0;1096.5t/ha). Beske and Ibadan local varieties performed better in the rainforest zone of Nigeria. Organic fertilizer sources complimented with mineral fertilizer timely applied with good agronomic managements are measures to enhance growth and yield performance of tomato.