Plant Spacing and Cultivar Affects Yield Components, Qualitative Traits and Early Ripening of Tomato (<i>Lycopersicon esculentum</i>)

Abstract

Two-year field trial was set up on sandy clay soil in the Jiroft and Kahnouj Agricultural Research Center with the objective to determine the effect of plant spacing and different cultivars on the yield and qualitative characteristics of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum). This experiment was performed as split plot based on complete randomized block design with 3 replications. The main plots were in – row spacing in 4 levels include 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6 m and the subplots were cultivars naming ‘Shef ’, ‘Peto Early CH’ and ‘FDT 202’. The results showed that, fruit length to diameter ratio, total acidity, fruit number per plant, mean fruit weight, yield per plant, total yield and first harvest to total harvests ratio were significantly affected by plant spacing. In addition, cultivars showed significant effect on all traits evaluated (p