Influence of Nutritional Treatments on the Vitamin of Dwarfgem Tomato Variety (Solanum lycopersicum var dwarfgem L.)

Abstract

In Nigeria, crops are usually cultivated during the rainy season when there is high incidence of diseases such as damping-off. The tomato varieties that are high yielding with quality fruits are affected by this damping-off during the rains. To promote increased fruit supply, dwarfgem which has rare good quality of being resistant to damping-off serves as good alternative. The dwarfgem has high water content, sour taste, and thin skin which cracks, reduced storage life and low nutritional content needed to be improved. This study was therefore designed to evaluate an acceptable physiological method to improve the nutritional fruit quality of the dwarfgem tomato using nutritional treatment technique. The study was carried out at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Seeds of dwarfgem were obtained from Agricultural Development Program (ADP) Awka. Seeds were raised in the nursery. Twenty pieces of 40cm plastic buckets were used to prepare two groups of media according to the treatments which comprised of 14 buckets, each filled with mixture of organic manure and soil at the standard rate of 640 g/60kg (32 g/hectare) and 6 buckets each filled with only soil. Organic manure was goat pellets while inorganic manure was NPK (15:15:15). Salinity, (NaCl), and Bicarbonate (H3C03) were supplied at 2 mM concentration in the irrigation water. The buckets were arranged according to treatments in a Randomized Completely Block Design (RCBD). Lycopene, Beta- carotene and vitamins were determined by standard methods. Data were subjected to statistical analysis using Duncan T – test to separate the Means. The tomato plants treated with organic and inorganic fertilizers in combination with NaCl and BICA produced fruits with high levels of vitamin C (140.50±0.010 µg/g), E (5.64±0.002 µg/g), B6 (Pyridoxine) and B9 (folic acid or folate) while the least was recorded in the control. The plants treated with organic and inorganic fertilizers in combination with NaCl and BICA also increased the tomato lycopene content whereas the least was produced by fruits from the control. This has shown that the treatment of dwarfgem tomato variety with organic and inorganic fertilizer in combination with salinity and bicarbonate fully improved the fruit quality of the plant fruit vitamin and lycopene.