PERFORMANCE OF TRIACONTANOL IN CULTIVATION OF TOMATO UNDER SALINE CONDITION

Abstract

Soil salinity in Bangladesh is a major constraint for crop production. The pot experiment was conducted at the Research Field of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU), Dhaka during November 2019 to March 2020. BARI Tomato-18 was used as a test crop. The two factors experiment was laid out in CRD with three replications. The experiment consisted of two factors: Factor A: NaCl salt concentration (three levels) as S0: Control, S1: 100 mM and S2: 200 mM. Factor B: Triacontanol (four levels) as T0: Control i.e., no triacontanol, T1: 0.5 mg/L triacontanol, T2:1.0 mg/L triacontanol and T3: 2.0 mg/L triacontanol, respectively. The results of this experiment showed that the salt stress reduced the morphological parameters and yield of tomato. The minimum germination percentage (76.7) and shortest seedling (2.07 cm) was found in control treatment and the maximum germination percentage (98.3) and the tallest seedling (3.53 cm) was observed with priming with 2 mg/L of triacontanol .The lowest value of plant height (36.7 cm), leaf length (12.0 cm), leaves per plant (7.67), flowers per cluster (2.33), number of fruits per cluster (1.33), yield per pot (0.16 kg), length of fruit (43 mm) and fruit diameter (17.33 mm), lowest OM (1.30%), lowest phosphorus (14.8 mg/kg) ,lowest sulphur (16.2 mg/kg), were recorded with S2 and the highest values were notice in control. Triacontanol significantly increased the germination percentage, growth contributing characters as well as fruit yield of tomato at all NaCl concentrations. For combined effect, the tallest plant (88.7 cm), highest leaf length (31.4 cm), maximum number of leaves (19.33), highest number of flowers per cluster (10.0), highest number of fruits per cluster (6), highest yield per pot (0.29 kg), highest fruit length (63.3 mm) and highest fruit diameter (38.0 mm), highest organic matter (1.43%), highest available phosphorus (26.8 mg/kg), highest available sulphur (25.1 mg/kg) were produced from S0T3 and the lowest from S2T0. Except electrical conductivity (EC), no other soil parameters (pH, Organic matter, P and S) were significantly influenced by the treatments (NaCl and triacontanol). This result suggests that, triacontanol can help to reduce the deleterious effect of salt stress in tomato.