The role of spraying nitrogen on growth and nutritional value of fruits in different tomato genotypes

Abstract EN

An experiment was conducted at the field of the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Gardening, College of Agriculture, University of Baghdad during the spring season of 2012 to evaluate Nitrogen (Urea) foliar application at four concentrations 0 , 1.5 , 3 , and 4.5 g/L-1 and six tomato genotypes ,OLKA , JINAN, SUN, GS12, BAHGAT (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) and wild type (Lycopersicon pimpinillifolium).

The experiment was carried out according to the split–plot experimental design with three replications in order to determine the best concentration of urea along with the best genotype(s) respond to the treatments.

Results showed Spraying with 4.5 g.

L-1 (Urea) gave significant response in terms of number of main branches (4.98 branch.

Plant -1), leaf area (229.11 decm2.Plant-1), total chlorophyll (261.86 mg.

100g-1 fresh weight), early flowering (27.83 day), acidity, T.S.S.

and nitrogen in fruits (0.23, 4.01 and 2.26%, respectively).

The Interaction of the same concentration with GS12 gave the best average of total chlorophyll and T.S.S.

of (306.22 mg.

100g-1 fresh weight and 4.70% respectively) in addition to early flowering and fruit set of (25.33 and 31.67 day respectively).