Influence of organic and inorganic fertilizer on agronomic traits and salt tolerance of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L.)

Abstract

Salt stress is one of major abiotic threats to crop productivity globally. The effect
of Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (AMF), NPK and Compost on salt tolerance of
tomato at 100 mM was investigated. The study aimed at improving tomato growth
and yield under continuous irrigation system, this was done by applying NPK (16
g), compost (150 g) and AMF (20 g). the growth data collected on agronomic trait
were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA), principal component analysis
(PCA) and correlation. The results obtained revealed that compost only had the
highest yield of 101.80 g in non-saline condition, followed by the combination of
compost and NPK with yield of 91.99 g under saline condition, while saline
solution only had the lowest yield (2.25 g). The relative discriminating power of
the PCA as revealed by Eigen value was 4.19, 1.40 and 1.00 for PC1, PC2 and
PC3, respectively with corresponding contribution of 52.38%, 18.43% and
11.98%, respectively. The first three PCs accounted for 83.79% of the total
variation. PC1 was associated with number of leaves, plant height, stem girth and
number of fruits. PC2 was linked with fruit and shoot fresh weight with negative
loading and root fresh weight with positive loading, while PC3 was responsible
for the number of fruits with negative loading and number of flowers with positive
loading. Fruit fresh weight showed a strong positive correlation with all
agronomic traits assessed, except for the root fresh weight. Therefore, identified
traits can be useful in tomato improvement programs for indirect selection of yield
improvement. Also, combination of compost/AMF with NPK fertilizer can
enhance performance of tomato plants and serve as buffer to withstand salt stress
for more productivity.