Influence of micronutrients application on growth and seed yield in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum MILL.)

A field experiment was conducted during rabi-2010 to find out the response of foliar application of micronutrients on vegetative and reproductive growth attributes, in two varieties of tomato viz- Utkal Kumari and Utkal Raja. The treatments consisted of boron, zinc, molybdenum, copper, iron, manganese, mixture of all and control and the experiment was laid our in RBD with three replications. All the Micronutrients except manganese (@ 50ppm) were applied @100ppm in three sprays at an interval of ten days starting from 30 days after transplanting. All the treatments resulted in improvement of plant growth characteristics viz. plant height, number of primary branches, compound leaves, tender and mature fruits per plant and seed yield characteristics like recovery percentage, 100 seed weight, seed yield per plant and seed yield per hectare in both the varieties out of which application of micronutrients mixture showed the maximum effect. In tomato cv. Utkal Kumari, maximum growth rate (85.7 %) was observed with application of zinc, followed by application of micronutrients mixture (78.2 %) and boron (77.5 %). Tomato cv. Utkal Raja, maximum increase in branches per plant was observed with the application of manganese (148.7 %) followed by micronutrient combination (144.1 %). Highest seed recovery rates of 0.53 and 0.55 percent recorded in the varieties Utkal Kumari and Utkal Raja, respectively by application of micronutrients mixture. The highest seed weight was observed with application of micro-nutrients mixture (Utkal Raja) and boron (Utkal Kumari). In both varieties, application of micronutrients mixture gave maximum seed yield followed by boron treatment, in respect both the parameters, while the lowest yield was obtained in the control.