Abstract:
Preliminary evaluations have shown that indeterminate new tomato breeding
lines produce high yields of large fruits. Pruning systems have been reported to
regulate tomato fruit size and overall yield performance. A study to evaluate the
effect of pruning levels (non pruning, single stem, two stems and three stems) on
plant developmental cycle, yield, and quality of five indeterminate tomato breeding
lines and one commercial cultivar was conducted from November 2009 to March
2010 at the Horticulture Unit of Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro,
Tanzania. Results showed that two stem pruned plants gave the highest number of
marketable fruits per plant. The highest number of non marketable tomato fruits
per hectare was observed in unpruned plants. Tomato lines differed in their
performance, with the longest period of harvesting, highest number of flowers
flowers, highest percentage of fruit-set, the highest yield, high number of marketable
fruits observed in lines P20-(03) and 186-2(06), which is probably a result of their
genetic characteristic. It was concluded that, the large fruit size of the new tomato
breeding lines can be reduced to meet consumer’s needs without reducing yield by
two and three stem pruning in lines P20-03 and S186-2(07).
