Effect of Blended NPS Fertilizer Rates on Growth Performance of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L) at Wolaita Sodo University, Ethiopia

Abstract

Filed experiment was conducted as Wolaita sodo University, college of agriculture and department of horticulture filed site to evaluate the response of vegetative growth of tomato to different rate of NPS application. The size of total plot is 7.5m X 5.5m (41.25m²) and the size of each plot was 1.50m X 1.50m (2.25m²). Three rate of  blended NPS fertilizer at 80kg /ha, 160kg/ha and 240kg/ha with control (check). The experiment was lay out with 12 plots having 3 blokes and each block have four plots. The data on plant height per plant, the primary branches per plant, and the number of leaves per plants were collected from three plants of the middle rows of each plot and subjected to statistical analysis using ANOVA with computing the treatment by least significance difference  at 5 %. As the result the number of leaf number shows significant (P<0.05) and the plant height per plant shows significant difference (P<O.5) and the others parameters which is the number of primary branch shows non-significant (p>0.05) different. This shows the tomato crop requires high amount NPS supply enough to maintain the branch, plant height, and the leaf number of tomato vegetative growth. Application of 240kg/ha of blended NPS fertilizer did showed significant factors for all growth parameters. Hence, as this research revealed that application of 240kg/ha was the optimum level for effective vegetative performance of tomato. However, to come up concrete recommendation the study should be repeated across the season and up to yield  .

Keywords: Tomato, blended  NPS fertilizer, Plant height, Leaf number, branch number

DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/9-24-01

Publication date: December 31^st 2019