Abstract:
Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum (L.) H. Karst.)
is one of the most nutritionally and economically important
vegetable plant in the world and the good productivity of
tomato requires availability of water throughout the cycle,
as the tomato plant is very sensitive to soil water deficit.
Therefore, an experiment was conducted at the Crop
Farm of the Faculty of Agriculture, Eastern University,
Sri Lanka to determine the effect of moisture stress on
fruit quality of selected tomato cultivars viz. ‘Roma’,
‘Thilina’ and ‘KC1’ such as the vitamin C, total soluble
solids (TSS), acid contents and yield of tomato fruits during
fruit ripening stage. The experiment was conducted in
Randomized Complete Block Design with six treatments
and four replications. Moisture stress was imposed for
a period of six days for the treated plants during the
flowering stage. The control plants were irrigated daily
to the Field Capacity. The result showed that moisture
stress reduced the vitamin C contents of fruits. The highest
(18.2 mg/100 g) ascorbic acid content was obtained in cv.
‘KC-1’ while the lowest (8.7 mg/100 g) was obtained in
cv. ‘Roma’. The TSS and acid contents of the fruits were
slightly affected by moisture stress when the stress was
imposed during the flowering stage. The highest (6.7%)
TSS content was recorded in cv. ‘Thilina’ while the lowest
(1.8%) was observed on cv. ‘Roma’ and there were no
significant differences between treatments in the acidity
of ‘Roma’, ‘Thilina’ and ‘KC-1’ under stressed condition.
Moisture stress significantly (p<0.05) reduced the yield of
‘KC1’, ‘Roma’ and ‘Thilina’ tomato cultivars. The highest
yield (5252 kg ha-1) was obtained in the ‘KC-1’ with low
(14%) yield reduction and the lowest yield (4080 kg ha-1)
was found in ‘Thilina’ with high (31%) yield reduction
under moisture stress. Among the tested tomato cultivars,
‘KC-1’ was identified as the most moisture stress tolerant
and showed potential for cultivation in drought prone
areas that focus on the production of higher yield with
better fruit quality.
