EFFECT OF HORMONE ON HEAT TOLERANT TOMATO HYBRID (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) LINES

Abstract

Tomato is one of the popular vegetables in Bangladesh. High temperature (both day and night), humidity, rainfall and light intensity are the basic limiting factors of the tomato production in summer season. During summer season tomato is available in urban market at an exorbitant price. These tomatoes are coming from exotic source mostly through unapproved channel. There is a great demand of tomato in summer- rainy season but there is no good variety for this season. Recently BARI has released some heat tolerant open pollinated and hybrid varieties with some limitations liking hormone application and smaller fruit size. Considering the factors, the experiment was under taken to evaluate the newly developed 13 heat tolerant tomato hybrids under field condition with and without application of hormone during summer-rainy season. The experiment was conducted at the Research Farm of Olericulture division under Horticulture Research Centre of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) Joybebpur, Gazipur during the month of May 2004 to August 2004. The experiment was laid out in a RCBD (factorial) with three replications. Thirteen ( 13) hybrids of heat tolerant tomato lines and with and without hormonal application were included in this experiment. The highest yield of fruit per plant (587.50 g) was recorded from the line C12 and the lowest yield of fruit per plant (221.50 g) was found from the line C3. Hormone application had positive effect on the yield contributing characters and yield of hybrid tomato lines. The highest yield of fruits per plant (444.72 g) was recorded from the hormone-applied line, which was 65 % higher than no-hormone. Heat tolerant hybrid tomato line C12 with the hormone application resulted better yield contributing characters and produced highest yield of fruit per plant (778g).