Effects of Salt Stress on the Growth and Yield of Selected Tomato (Solatium lycopersicon Mill.) Cultivars in the Sandy Regosol Soil

Abstract

An experiment was conducted on a farmer’s field during the 'Yala' 2016 to evaluate salt stress effects on the shoot and root dry weights, chlorophyll a, b and total chlorophyll contents and the yield of selected tomato cultivars, namely 'Thilina’, 'Roma' and 'KC1'. The experiment was laid out in the Completely Randomised Design in 3x2 factorial arrangement Salt stress significantly (p<0.05) reduced the shoot and root dry weights of all the tested tomato cultivars. The highest shoot dry weight (187.4 g) and root dry weight (146.3 g) were obtained from the cultivar, ‘KCl’ and the lowest shoot dry weight (147.3 g) and root dry weight (122.6 g) were recorded in the cultivar 'Thilina' under saline condition. Salt stress also significantly reduced the chlorophyll a, b and total chlorophyll contents of all the tested tomato cultivars. The highest amount of chlorophyll a (1.19 mgg-1 fresh w t), chlorophyll b (0.09 mgg-1 fresh w t) and total #lorophyll (1.26 mgg-1 fresh w t) were observed in the 'KCl' and the lowest amount of chlorophyll a (0.84 mgg-1 fresh w t), chlorophyll b (0.03 mgg-1 fresh w t) and total chlorophyll (0.93 m gg1 fresh w t) were found in the 'Thilina’ under salt stress condition. The highest yield (31.6t h a 1) was obtained in the 'KCl' and the lowest (20.9t h a 1) was found in the 'Thilina’ under saline condition. From these results it was concluded that 'KCl' tomato cultivar could withstand salinity stress better than the rest of the cultivars tested with less reduction in growth and yield. Hence, 'KCl' was identified as the salt tolerant tomato cultivar among the tested ones.