EFFECT OF POLYMERS ON GROWTH, YIELD AND QUALITY OF TOMATO
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Date
2018-07
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AAU, Jorhat
Abstract
An experiment, entitled “Effect of polymers on growth, yield and quality of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)” was carried out during the year 2016-17 at Dryland Technology Park, AICRPDA, B N College of Agriculture, AAU, Biswanath Chariali with three objectives i) To study the effect of polymers on growth and yield of tomato. ii) To evaluate the effect of polymers on fruit quality. iii) To assess the soil moisture and nutrient dynamics with the use of polymers. The experiment was laid out in RBD with seven treatments replicated three times. The treatments were T1 : Control, T2 : Polymer A @ 12.5 kg ha-1, T3 : Polymer A @ 25 kg ha-1, T4 : Polymer A @ 50 kg ha-1, T5: Polymer B @ 12.5 kg ha-1, T6 : Polymer B @ 25 kg ha-1 and T7 : Polymer B @ 50 kg ha-1. In addition to the treatments other recommended package of practices were followed with timely adoption of required plant protection measures. All the morpho-physiological, yield and yield attributes, quality of fruits and soil parameters were taken following standard methodologies. The results of the experiment clearly indicated significant variations with respect to all the above parameters under different treatments of polymer. Among all the treatments, polymer B @ 50 kg ha-1 (T7) registered the highest plant height (29.97cm, 68.20cm and 79.30 cm), number of functional leaves (7.09, 26.77 and 29.07) and number of branches (0.67, 3.83 and 3.87) at 30, 60 and 90 DAT, respectively. Leaf area index (3.99 and 4.36), total chlorophyll content (1.28 mg g-1 fw and 1.23 mg g-1 fw), chlorophyll stability index (0.17 and 0.15) and relative leaf water content (84.00 % and 76.33 %) were recorded to be highest in T7 at both 60 and 90 DAT, respectively. In contrast these parameters were lowest in control. The maximum moisture content were recorded in T7 in all the above mentioned periods and the lowest were observed in control. The uptake of nutrients was highest in the treatment T7 (polymer B @ 50 kg ha-1) while the lowest was recorded in control (T1). The treatment T2 showed maximum available soil N (299.06 kg ha-1), P2O5 (30.62 kg ha-1), K2O (240.65 kg ha-1) and organic carbon content (0.77 %). Days to first flowering was delayed in hydrophilic polymers treated plots, thus minimum days taken was in control (42.07 days). The yield attributes i.e. number of fruits per cluster (4.56), number of fruits per plant (34.69), fruit diameter (4.66 cm), individual fruit weight (48.78g), fruit yield per plant (1.69 kg) and fruit yield per hectare (56.44 t ha-1) were recorded significantly highest in treatment T7. The above yield attributes were found to be lowest in control. However, the number of fruiting cluster per plant was not significantly influenced by the treatments. The quality parameters i.e. TSS and ascorbic acid were found significantly highest under the treatment T7. But the increase in lycopene content of the fruits with the increase in concentration of super absorbent polymers was non significant. The study on economics of production showed that maximum benefit-cost ratio of 3.19 was obtained in the treatment T7. The result of the present investigation finally show that the crop yield could be improved by adding hydrophilic polymers to the soil as the polymers in soil could store extra water and enable the plants to utilize that water over an extended period of time. With the increase in concentration of hydrophilic polymers, there was increased in growth, yield and quality of tomato fruits. Since polymers are biodegradable, so they do not have any adverse effect on soil and are considered as eco-friendly which is an added advantage of polymer.