Response of Tomato Defoliation on Yield, Morpho-Physiological and Reproductive Characters

Khatun S, Mollah MI and Mondal MMA

Published on: 2022-12-30

Abstract

Pruning at vegetative and reproductive stages of staked-tomato is a common practice by growers. The experiment was conducted under sub-tropical condition during two successive seasons (November-March) of 2016-17 and 2017-18 to investigate the effect of defoliations on morpho- physiological and reproductive characters, and yield of tomato. The experiment comprised of five levels of defoliation viz., 0 (control), 3, 6, 9 and 12 leaves defoliation from base out of 17 leaves beginning at flowering phase and two widely cultivated varieties viz., TM-110 and TM-135. The experiment was laid out in two factors split-plot design with three replicates with varieties as main plot and the defoliation levels as sub-plot. Leaf area, number of leaves, absolute growth rate, number of effective flower cluster and flowers, number of fruits, individual fruit weight and fruit yield were not affected up to 6 leaves defoliation irrespective of seasons and genotypes. Interestingly, photosynthesis, nitrate reductase and reproductive efficiency increased with increasing defoliation levels. Morpho-physiological parameters and yield attributes were higher in 3 and 6 leaves defoliated plants over the control with being the highest in 6 leaves defoliated plant, which resulting the highest fruit yield. Heavy defoliation not only reduced source sizes but also decreased total sink (flower and fruits) production causing lower fruit yields. The lowest yield attributes and fruit yield was recorded in 12 leaves defoliated plants. These results indicate that tomato plants can tolerate one-third leaf loss during reproductive stage. Implication of the results in relation to early blight disease management is also discussed.