Varietal Performance of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) to Poultry Manure and Foliar Application of Moringa Leaf Extract

Abstract

A pot experiment was carried out at the Teaching and Research Farm, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt to evaluate the growth and fruit yield responses of three tomato varieties to poultry manure (PM) and foliar application of moringa leaf extract (MLE). The PM was applied at 0 and 20 t/ha while the MLE was appliedat 0, 5, and 10 litre concentrations (MLE 5 and 10) separately and in all possible combinations in a completely randomized design in three replicates. The parameters measured were plant height, number of leaves, number of branches, percentage emergence, number of days to flowering, number of days to fruiting, number of flowers per plant, number of fruits and fresh fruit weight. The treatments differed significantly (P = 0.05) with the combinations of the treatments giving better performance. The combination of PM + MLE 5 gave the best growth performance however, the best yield performance was recorded on the PM + MLE 10. The application of PM + MLE 10 produced the highest number of fruits and fresh fruit weight.  Among the two levels of MLE single and combined, MLE gave best growth performance while MLE 10 recorded the best yield. Plants treated with Moringa extract recorded zero pest infestation when compared to the control and PM treatments. Among the three varieties of tomato used, Jos recorded the best performance across all treatments singly or combined followed by RVF variety. Beef variety recorded the least performance. The significant effect of MLE in this study, suggests that MLE can be used as source of nutrients to grow tomato singly or combined with other nutrient sources.