Effect of Different Spacing and Urea Application Rates on Fruit Nutrient Composition, Growth and Yield of Tomato in Derived Savannah Vegetation of Kogi State, Nigeria

Abstract

Experiments were located at Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority, Ejiba and Horticultural Section College of Agriculture, Kabba in 2014 cropping season to investigate the effect of different spacing and urea application rates on fruit nutrient composition, growth and fruit yield of tomato in derived savanna vegetation of Nigeria. Field experiments were arranged in a rando-mized complete block design in factorial fashion with three replications. The row spacing were 75 × 40 cm (33,333 plant•ha −1), 75 × 50 cm (26,666 plant•ha −1) and 75 × 60 cm (22,222 plant•ha −1) while the urea rates comprised control (0 kg urea•ha −1), 54.3 and 108.6 kg urea•ha −1. Growth and yield parameters taken were as follows: average plant height, stem girth, leaf area (m 2) and yield per land area. Data were collected from ten randomly selected plants in each plot. The data were statistically analyzed using GENSTAT. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to find out the significance of variation among the treatments while the significant difference between mean treatments was separated using least significance Difference at 5% level of probability. The result obtained from this study indicated that urea application and spacing affected significantly growth parameters of tomato and yield per land area. It could be concluded that there was a significant increase in plant height, number of leaves, number of fruits per plant and final fruit weight of tomato as a result of urea fertilizer application at the rate of 108.6 kg urea/ha. However, this was not significantly better than plots with urea application at 54.8 kg/ha in both Ejiba and Kabba. Row spacing of 75 × 50 cm showed better performance in number of fruit and fruit yield per plots. Farmers in Ejiba and Kabba should apply urea at the rate of 54.8 kg per hectare and plant the crop at a row spacing of 75 × 50 cm for optimum yield and for a more profitable production of tomato.