EFFECT OF BORON ON THE GROWTH, YIELD AND QUALITY OF EXOTIC TOMATO LINES

Abstract

The experiment was conducted at Horticulture Farm, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh during the period from October 2016 to April 2017. The experiment consisted of two factors namely Factor A: Three levels of foliar spray of boron as- B 0 : 0 ppm (Control), B : 100 ppm boric acid and B : 200 ppm boric acid; Factor B: Three different tomato line as- L 1 2 : Exotic Tomato Line-1, L 2 : Exotic Tomato Line-2, L : BARI Tomato-15. The two factorial experiments were laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. Among boron concentrations, maximum fruit setting (56.73 %), yield (64.89 t/ha) and TSS (4.3 %) was found in B 3 whereas these were minimum in B . For tomato lines, maximum yield (79.87 t/ha) was found in L 3 2 while the minimum in L . Considering quality parameters, Vitamin C (20 mg) was the highest in L 3 1 whereas TSS (4.58%) was the highest in L . In interaction effect, the highest yield (85 t/ha) was obtained from B and the lowest (31.23 t/ha) in B 2 L . Although the present study suggest to cultivate BARI Tomato-15, but other two exotic lines were adopted well and showed good performance in terms of yield and quality parameters.