Original research article
Response of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) Varieties to Different Animal Manure
2020, 85 (4) p. 311-316
Ehizogie Joyce Falodun, Sunday Aghafekokhian Ogedegbe
Abstract
High cost of inorganic manure in Nigeria coupled with the problem of product availability justifies an investigation into alternative source of nutrients, which is more readily available and cheaper while the importance of organic manure in improving crop production for food security cannot be overemphasized. Two field experiments were carried out at the Faculty of Agriculture Teaching and Research Farm, University of Benin during the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 dry cropping seasons of October – March to determine the response of two tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) varieties to different animal manure. The treatments were three types of animal manure (swine, poultry, cow-dung at 20 t ha-1 each and a control) and two tomato varieties (Roma VF and UC82). The experiment was a 2 × 4 factorial laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) in three replications. Data were collected on plant height, number of leaves, number of branches, leaf area, stem diameter, number of flowers, number of days to 50% flowering, number of fruits per plant, fruit fresh weight, fruit diameter and fruit yield t ha-1. Results obtained from the experiment showed that there were significant differences (p < 0.05) in some of the reproductive characters as influenced by different animal manure. Swine and poultry manure showed superiority above cow-dung and the control. In both years, significantly similar and the highest fruit yield was produced by swine manure (14.24 and 7.82 t ha-1) and poultry manure (12.15 and 7.64 t ha-1). This study showed that the rate of 20 t ha-1 of either swine or poultry manure could be used for production of the two tomato varieties (Roma VF or UC 82) in Edo rain - forest zone of Nigeria.
Keywords
cow-dung, stem diameter, yield
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