Tomato

Morphology

Botany

• The tomato, Lycopersicon lycopersicum (Lycos, wolf; persica, peach; esculentum, edible, belongs to the family Solanaceae and is related to brinjal.
• It is herbaceous annual plant with bisexual flowers.
• The fruit is a true berry.
• It is a self-pollinated crop but in some cases as high as 30% cross-pollination has been reported.
• Depending upon the growth habit, the tomato plants have been categorized into two-indeterminate and determinate types.
• The plant of former type terminates in a vegetative bud, whereas that of the determinate type terminates in a flower-bud and is appropriately called 'self topping' or 'self pruning' type.
• Many varieties of determinate type tomato plants do not have adequate foliage to protect their fruit. Some of them fruit very early.
• The determinate varieties can be harvested in 2-3 harvests while the fruiting period of indeterminate type is prolonged.

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Fruit Set

• In early spring and autumn the failure of fruit-set in tomato is a common problem.
• In early spring it is due to the prevailing low temperature and in early autumn it is due to high temperature.
• When night temperatures are below 13^oC the pollination and fertilisation processes are impaired.
• Day temperatures exceeding 38^oC may adversely affect fruit-set. When poor setting is due to failure of pollination or fertilisation, use of plant regulators improves fruit-set.
• Flower cluster or whole plant sprays are very effective. The plant regulators which have been found effective are para-chlorophenoxyacetic acid at 15 to 20 PPM, 2, 4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid at 1 to 2 PPM as whole plant spray when the first few flower clusters appear has been found very effective and economical.
• Even soaking the seeds in solutions of plant regulators for 24 hours prior to sowing has been found beneficial.
• Effective concentrations may vary with the environment and variety. There are processes like Hot-set and Cold-set which set fruit at higher and lower temperatures.

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