Evaluating performance of recently released tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) varieties at highland areas of West Hararghe, Ethiopia

Abstract

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is one of the most important and widely grown vegetable crops both during rainy and dry seasons for its fruit by smallholder farmers, commercial state and private farms in Ethiopia. Field study was conducted during 2018 to 2020 cropping season at highland areas of West Hararghe aimed at evaluating performance of recently released tomato varieties. Treatments used were composed of three released tomato varieties (Gelilema, Chali & ARP-Tomato-d2) arranged in a randomized complete block design (RCBD). Traits such as plant height, number of primary branches, days to 50% flowering, days to 50% maturity, number of clusters per plant, number of fruits per cluster, fruit weight, unmarketable fruit yield, marketable fruit yield and total fruit yield were analyzed using R software (R 3.4.1). According to analysis of variance, tomato varieties were found to cause significant (p≤0.001) difference for plant height (cm), number of primary branches per plant, days to 50% flowering (days), days to 50% maturity (days), number of clusters per plant, number of fruit per cluster, fruit weight (gmfruit-1 ), marketable fruit yield (tha-1 ) and total fruit yield (tha-1 ) while unmarketable fruit yield (tha-1 ) nonsignificantly affected by tomato varieties. Hence, highest plant height (60cm), the highest days to 50% flowering (53 days), highest days to 50% maturity (102days), the highest number of primary branches (9 numberplant-1 ), the highest number of cluster (14 number plant-1 ), highest number of fruits (4.33 number cluste-1 ), highest marketable fruit yield (30.33 tha-1 ) and highest total fruit yield (33.33tha-1 ) recorded with variety Gelilema. Among tomato varieties evaluated, variety Gelilema showed best performances in plant height, primary branches, fruit yield and fruit yield components of tomato. Therefore, as variety Gelilema was superior in these parameters, recommended for the study areas to maximize productivity and production of tomato.