Journal of Asian Horticulture. 2:170-175 (2006).

Effect of Stage of Fruit Pickings on Seed Quality in Leaf Curl Resistant Tomato Varieties in Different Seasons
VISHWANATH, K1., RAJASHEKHAR, B.S1., KALAPPA V.P1., MUNIYAPPA, V 2 AND H. M. PALLAVI1 1 Department of Seed Science and Technology, 2 Department of Plant Pathology
Abstract: Field and laboratory studies were carried out to study the effect of planting seasons influencing plant growth, fruit yield and seed yield and quality in tomato varieties resistant to leaf curl virus. Among the pickings, third picking showed higher seed weight per plant, seed to fruit ratio, per nd st cent germination and seedling vigour index which was closely followed by 2 and 1 picking in kharif and rabi. While in summer, seeds from second picking followed by first picking recorded higher seed weight per plant and seed quality parameters.

INTRODUCTION Till recently, there are no open pollinated varieties resistant to TLCV are available for cultivation, although a few virus resistant hybrids have been introduced by private industry since 1997. University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore has developed three open pollinated varieties, which are resistant to leaf curl virus (Anon ., 2002). The climatic condition is one of the most important factors for attaining potential yield of any new variety. Generally, crop grown in winter gives high yield under Indian conditions. The optimum temperature required for tomato cultivation is 15-27oC. At high and low temperature, there is low germination of seeds, poor plant growth, flower drop, poor fruit set and ripening and poor seed development. Excessive rain also affects the crop growth and yield severely (Kanwar, 1989). The availability of quality seed is of utmost important for increasing production and productivity of tomato. In tomato the quality of seed also found to be influenced by stage of pickings. Materials and Method Harvesting and post harvesting operations: The fruits were harvested at 5 pickings (P1, P2, P3, P4 & P5) in kharif and rabi seasons, while in summer crop, fruits were harvested in 3 pickings only due to early senescence. The fruits were harvested when they turn red ripe at an interval of 7-8 days. The ripened fruits were picked and they were kept in a plastic container for two days for complete ripening. The ripened fruits harvested separately from each variety wise were kept for fermentation for 24hours, the seeds were separated by cleaning and washing the pulp with water and then seeds were cleaned and dried under shade and sun alternatively till seeds attain to 8 per cent moisture content and then the seeds were sieved using screen of 2.1mm sieve size. Seeds extracted from each picking weighed and seed weight was recorded and seed to fruit ratio was calculated. Later 90 per cent of the seeds in each picking were taken out and bulked and mixed thoroughly and used to asses the seed yield and quality parameters as affected by seasons and varieties. Ten per cent of the seeds from each of the picking were maintained separately to study the effect of stage of pickings on seed quality parameters and following seed quality parameters were assessed:

1000 seed weight: Hundred seeds of eight replications were taken randomly from each of the seed size grades and were weighed and the mean 100-seed weight was calculated and expressed in grams. Germination: test was conducted by between paper method as per the procedure outlined by ISTA (Anon, 1996). Vigour index: was calculated by multiplying per cent germination and seedling length (Abdul-Baki and Anderson, 1973). Data collected were statistically analyzed by the analysis of variance techniques by adopting Following Completely Randomized Design (CRD) (Panse and Sukhatme, 1967). Arcsine square root method was applied for transformation of data, which was applied on those tables in which the values were less than ten or in percentage. Results and Discussion The crop duration varied widely due to seasons depending on climatic conditions especially the drought and the mites attack. kharif took 110 days, rabi 140 days while summer crop turn down its growth in 100 days. Seed weight and seed to fruit ratio: The third and second picking showed superiority in respect of the seed yield parameters viz., seed weight and seed to fruit ratio in all the three seasons. The seeds produced in kharif and rabi recorded higher seed weight (1.46g and 5.65g respectively) and higher seed to fruit ratio (0.48% each) in third picking which was closely followed by second and first picking. In both kharif and rabi season fourth and fifth picking recorded reduced seed yield and quality parameters. The higher seed yield components upto third picking were due to better supply and translocation of assimilates and accumulation of metabolites in early formed fruits and efficient mobilization relationship between source and sink for the proper development of seeds in sound physiological status. These results were confirmed with the findings of Dharamatti et al. (1990). In summer fruit picking not continued beyond third picking due to adverse weather and crop being affected severely by early senescence as a result of abiotic stresses, leaf minor and mites out break. In general reduced seed weight was observed in all the three pickings, however second picking showed higher seed weight per plant (1.3g), seed to fruit ratio (0.27%), germination (87.9%) and seedling vigour index (1285) followed by first picking and the lowest seed quality were noticed with third picking. Among varieties Nandi recorded significantly higher seed weight and seed to fruit ratio in all the three seasons. However, the reduced seed weight (1.12g) and seed to fruit ratio (0.29%) was recorded in summer compare to kharif and rabi season. These differences among the varities were due to inherent character of individual variety (Vadivelu and Srimathi, 1998). Seed quality parameters: Irrespective of the varieties, the seeds obtained upto third picking significantly recorded higher quality parameters in both kharif and rabi season. The seeds from third picking recorded maximum 1000 seed weight (2.37g and 2.36g respectively), germination (94.0% and 93.4% respectively), seedling length (15.40cm and 15.30cm respectively) and seedling vigour index (1449 and 1429 respectively) in kharif and rabi season. This was closely followed by the seeds of second and first picking. The last two (4th and 5th) picking fruits have lower seed quality parameters.

The superiority of the seeds from earlier pickings could be attributed to better development of seeds, as the seeds obtained from the lower branches of early-formed fruits where the plants were in vigorous growth and development. These results corroborated with the findings of Metha and Ramakrishnan (1996). The seeds produced in summer showed reduced seed quality parameters. However, quality of seeds from second and first picking were better than third picking in summer. Among the varieties, Vybhav recorded maximum 1000 seed weight in all the three seasons. While, Sankrathi recorded maximum germination and seedling vigour index in all three seasons. In conclusion, The seeds produced in rabi and kharif realized, from earlier pickings(i.e. first, second, third picking could be used for seed purpose as they posses higher seed quality parameters, which constitutes maximum per cent of seeds produced. Fruits from later pickings, fourth and fifth picking can be picked for vegetable. REFERENCES: Anonymous, 1996, International Rules for Seed Testing. Seed Science and Technology, 24( Suppl.): 1-340. Abdul Baki, A.A. and Anderson, J.P., 1973, Vigour determination in soyabean by multiple criteria. Crop Science, 13: 630-633. Anonymous, 2002, UAS develops 3 virus resistant varieties of tomatoes, Agro India, Aug., pp.6. Dharamatti, P.R., Madalgeri, B.B., Kanamadi, V.C., Mannikeri, I.M. and Patil, Y.B., 1990, Tomato seed quality in relation to fruit picking. Prograssive Horticulture, 22(14): 145-146. Kanwar, J.S., 1989, Quality seed production technique of tomato. Seeds & Farms, pp. 20-23. Metha, A.V. and Ramakrishnan, 1986, Effect of different pickings on the storability of chilli seeds. Madras Agricultural Journal, 73(12): 661-667. Panse, V. S. and Sukhatme, P.V., 1967, Statistical Methods for Agricultural workers. Published by Indian Council of Agricultural Research Publication. New Delhi. pp. 34-37. Vadivelu, K.K. AND Srimathi, P., 1988, Tomato seed technology. Seeds & farms, pp. 2227.

Table 1 Effect of different pickings and varieties on seed quality parameters of tomato in different seasons

Season Seed weight (g/plant) 0.62 1.18 0.50 1.11 0.07 0.20

Kharif Seed to fruit ratio (%) 0.38 0.51 0.21 0.62 0.008 0.02 1000 seed weight (g) 2.16 2.31 2.43 2.29 0.006 0.01 Seed weight (g/plant)

Rabi Seed to fruit ratio (%) 0.35 0.51 0.20 0.61 0.01 0.04 1000 seed weight (g) 2.14 2.31 2.43 2.29 0.006 0.01 Seed weight (g/plant) 1.00 1.12 0.68 0.66 0.04 0.12

Summer
Seed to fruit ratio (%) 0.22 0.29 0.15 0.29 0.01 0.03 1000 seed weight (g) 2.13 2.20 2.35 2.10 0.007 0.02

Varieties Sankranthi Nandi Vybav Arka Vikas S.Em CD (0.05P)

Varieties 2.63 3.82 1.65 2.22 0.71 0.49 Pickings

Picking -1 Picking -2 Picking -3 Picking -4 Picking -5 S.Em CD (0.05P)

0.57 1.22 1.46 0.86 0.16 0.07 0.22

0.43 0.46 0.48 0.40 0.38 0.008 0.02

2.33 2.38 2.39 2.27 2.10 0.006 0.01

0.70 3.53 5.65 2.75 0.29 0.19 0.55

0.38 0.47 0.48 0.40 0.34 0.01 0.04

2.33 2.36 2.36 2.28 2.15 0.007 0.02

0.72 1.30 0.58 0.03 0.10

0.26 0.27 0.18 0.01 0.03

2.23 2.25 2.12 0.006 0.01

Table 2 Effect of different pickings and varieties on seed quality parameters of tomato in different seasons

Season Germination (%) 89.4 87.1 87.3 86.9 0.27 0.77

Kharif Seedling length (cm) 14.86 14.68 14.84 14.66 0.15 NS Seedling vigour index 1332 1283 1301 1278 14.18 37.6 Germination (%) Varieties 89.8 86.9 87.5 87.4 0.36 1.02 Pickings

Rabi Seedling length (cm 14.78 14.76 14.76 14.60 0.14 NS Seedling vigour index 1329 1285 1296 1285 12.63 35.81 Seed weight (g/plant) 86.4 83.1 82.8 80.4 0.24 0.71

Summer
Seedling length (cm 14.54 14.43 14.19 13.80 0.17 0.50 Seedling vigour index 1257 1202 1210 1115 22.45 64.45

Varieties Sankranthi Nandi Vybav Arka Vikas S.Em CD (0.05P)

Picking -1 Picking -2 Picking -3 Picking -4 Picking -5 S.Em CD (0.05P)

90.2 93.6 94.0 88.6 72.0 0.30 0.86

14.83 15.30 15.40 14.57 13.70 0.17 0.49

1335 1429 1449 1292 987 15.85 44.8

89.6 92.8 93.4 89.3 74.4 0.40 1.14

14.85 15.17 15.30 14.57 13.75 0.16 0.46

1331 1408 1429 1302 1024 14.13 40.03

83.1 87.9 78.5 0.21 0.61

14.29 14.60 13.82 0.15 0.44

1213 1285 1089 19.44 55.82