Influence of planting dates on growth, yield and seed quality of tomato grown in plastic house

Abstract

The study was to investigate the effect of planting dates on tomato production under plastic house for seed production and continuous tomato production. Tomato variety TBRY was planted, one and half month interval during June 2008 and January 2009, under plastic-house at the vegetable-experimental fields, Khon Kaen University. A Completely Randomized Design with three replications was used. Data were recorded for growth, yield and seed quality. The results showed that growth of tomato grown in rainy season was better than in winter season, but yield in rainy season was low. The yield on October planting gave the highest fresh fruit weight of 1,861.9 kg/plant. Planting date on December and October gave the highest seed per plant of 2,536.6 and 2,156.8 seeds/plant, respectively. Planting date on December, October and September gave the highest seed dry weight of 8.2590, 7.0361 and 6.2365 g/plant, respectively. Percentage of seed germination from October, December, July and September plantings were highest (98.65, 96.66, 93.22 and 91.55 %, respectively). Germination index of seed from October and December planting were highest (24.683 and 23.683, respectively).