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Aspects of tomato fruit quality as influenced by cultivar and scheme of fertilizer appication


G O Oko-Ibom
J E Asiegbu

Abstract



The fruit quality characteristics of eight tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) cultivars namely; UN-83, Nsukka Local, Roma VFN, Ronita, Ife-1, Rossol, NHle 7-7-1 and Ace VF were assessed under seven fertilizer application schemes in two field experiments at Nsukka, Southeast Nigeria. The tomato cultivars, UN-83, Roma VFN and Ronita excelled in most of the fruit quality characteristics studied, especially, resistance to cracking, low seed content, firmness, percent titratable acidity and soluble solids and, longer shelf life. On the average, fertilizer application at two weeks after transplanting either in single dose or in two splits with the second split applied at flowering, gave better fruit quality characteristics than the other application schedules except the two split application with one- half at transplanting and one- half at flowering.

Keywords: Tomato, Fruit quality, Fertilizer, Lycopersicon esculentum

> Agro-Science Vol. 6 (1) 2007: pp. 71-81

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eISSN: 1119-7455