Effect of moisture stress on fruit quality and yield of selected tomato (solanum lycopersicum l.) Cultivars

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.