MD. HASANUZZAMAN AKAND1 and JASIM UDDAIN2
1&2 Professor, Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Sher-e- Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh.
*Corresponding author’s Email:akandmh@yahoo.com.
ABSTRACT
The field experiment was conducted in the Horticulture Farm, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh during the period from November 2020 to May 2021 to find out the influence of seedling age and different mulches on the growth and yield of tomato. The experiment consisted of two factors. Factor A: seedling age such as S1: 30 days old seedling, S2: 35 days old seedling and S3: 40 days old seedling. Factor B: M0: No mulch; M1: Water hyacinth; M2: Black polythene and M3: Straw. The experiment was laid out in Randomized complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. At harvest the maximum (112.02 cm) plant height, number of fruits (37.94) per plant, maximum (89.85g) weight of individual fruit. The maximum (88.12 t/ha) yield was recorded from S2 and the minimum (was recorded from S1 except number of fruits. In case of mulching, the maximum (118.41 cm) plant height, maximum (99.63) number of flowers per plant, maximum (41.37) number of fruits per plant. Maximum (96.91g) weight of individual fruit, maximum (100.37 t/ha) yield was recorded from M2 while the minimum were obtained from S3 in all observations. Considering the combined effect, the maximum (122.45 cm) plant height, number of flowers (128.00) per plant, number of fruits (42.78) per plant, number of fruits (41.37) per plant, yield (117.60 t/ha) was recorded from S2 M2 and the minimum was found from S1M0.
Keywords: Seedling age, Mulching, Growth, Yield and Tomato.