Physiological characters and tomato yield under drought stress

Abstract

Climate change had changed the rainfall patterns and causing tomato plants to suffer from drought in a certain period. It affects the morphology and physiology characters of the plant, and thus these characters can be used as indicators to predict plant tolerance to drought. The study aimed to determine the relationship between several physiological characters with tomato yield under drought stress. The study was conducted using 7 lowland tomato cultivars, namely 'Zamrud', 'Permata F1', 'Mirah', 'Tombatu F1', 'Tyrana F1', 'Ratna' and 'Tymoti F1'. Drought was appliedby 8 days interval of watering. Relative water content, membrane stability index, chlorophyll, and proline content were measured when the plant entered the maximum vegetative of growth stage. The results showed a high correlation (r > 0.6) between membrane stability index with fruit weight per plant; while the proline, chlorophyll and relative water contents resulted in low correlation (r < 0.5) with fruit weight. The membrane stability index was better in indicating the drought tolerance in tomato than other physiological characters.