Integrated management of blossom end rot of tomato in Faisalabad, Pakistan

Abstract

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), ranks second in its importance among solanaceous crops. However, it requires an integrated/balanced cultural management to endure environmental stresses like blossom end rot (BER). Blossom end rot is an emerging physiological disorder in Pakistan which is caused by inadequate availability of calcium at the blossom end tissues of tomatoes. Current study was aimed to manage BER using irrigation, minerals and a hormone during 2013-2015 study period under greenhouse conditions. During first year of experiment, three different irrigation levels (2, 4, 6 times a day) and three Ca concentrations (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5%) were evaluated. During the second year, foliar applications of Abscisic Acid (ABA) was made at fruit setting stage keeping irrigation at optimum level. Visual disease assessments including disease incidence (%) were made weekly after symptoms appearance on fruits. Abscisic acid at 0.05% concentration revealed minimum BER symptoms (11.3%) on tomato fruits followed by calcium chloride at 1.5% (15.10%) and irrigation (20.1%). However, Gibberellic acid being antagonistic to ABA, suppresses the supply of calcium to the fruits. Statistical analysis revealed that total number of fruits and height of plants weren’t affected by treatments at different concentration. This study suggests that high marketable tomato yield can be attained by keeping tomato plants in optimum level of irrigation applying optimum level of irrigation, fertilizer and ABA. Further work is needed to evaluate the interaction of minerals in the rhizosphere and their synergistic effects on occurrence of BER.

Publication
In Phytopathology
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