The Effect of Drought Stress on Plant Development in Some Landraces and Commercial Tomato Genotypes

Abstract

One of the important factors that adversely affect tomato production is drought. As well as reducing yield and quality of tomato production, drought also reduces farmer’s income. One of the most important ways of alleviating its adverse effects is to determine the varieties that are tolerant to drought. For this reason, our study aimed to determine the tolerance of the varieties to drought. Accordingly, three hybrids varieties, three standards varieties and three landraces were used in the study. Tomato seeds were planted in a 2 litres-pot that contains 1:1 mixture of peat + perlite. After the cotyledon leaves busted out, the plant was irrigated with the Hoagland nutrient solution. While irrigation was carried on the control plants until the end of the application, irrigation was suddenly halted during the seedling period in the plants that are exposed to drought. After 12 days, plant fresh and dry weights, growth rates, leaf numbers, stem diameters, plant weights, 0-5 scale values, membrane damage indices and leaf proportional water contents were investigated. It was observed that there were significant differences in these parameters examined for the determination of tomato varieties that are tolerant and sensitive to drought stress. © 2017, Centenary University. All rights reserved.