Morphological and agronomic characterization of some tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) germplasm in Ghana

Abstract

In a study of morphological and agronomic characteristics of eight tomato accessions, a high variability was detected in plant height at flowering, fruit set, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight, number of locules per fruit, and yield. The variation in percent total soluble solids (3.9-5.0) and pH (3.9-4.4) was very small. The pH of the fruits in most of the accessions was close to 4.0 which is suitable for canning; however, the total soluble solids was below the 8 per cent required for canning. All of the accessions were highly sensitive to the high temperatures (28.6-32.2 oC) which prevailed during the period, resulting in low percentage fruit set (21.9-63.7). The overall correlations between number of fruits per plant, number of fruits per truss, fruit weight and yield were positive but very low (0.12-0.26). Some individual accessions, however, showed very high positive correlations between number of fruits per plant and yield (0.76-0.86) and number of fruits per truss and yield (r=0.63-0.89). The cultivar Wosowoso had a high negative correlation (-0.67) between number of fruits per truss and yield.


Ghana Jnl agric Sci. Vol.32(2) 1999: 169-175