EFFECT OF DROUGHT ON THE GROWTH AND NUTRITIONAL COMPONENT OF TOMATO (SOLANUM LYCOPERICUM)

ABSTRACT Tomato (Solanum lycopersium) is an important component of the daily diet, consumed both fresh and in paste form. In order to asses the effect of drought on the growth and nutritional component of tomato, this research was conducted as the screen house of the Department of plant science and biotechnology, Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba- Akoko. Three (3) accession of tomato seed namely; (Roma, Royal and Kerewe) were obtained from institute for Agriculture Research and Training ( IAR & T) Ibadan, the seed were sown inside a polythene bag under two different conditions of water available i.e controlled and drought, T1 is for control, T2 watered every three days, T3 watered every five days, T4 watered every seven days. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that difference exist among the morphological character and the nutritional element assessed in all the tomato accession. Accession 3 had the overall highest value for plant height (20-33+ 2.51,) while treatment 2 in accession 1 had the highest number of branches (11, 66+ 0.57), treatment 2 in accession 2 had the highest number of leaves (35.66+1.15) and the fruit yield (8.00 kg). of all the accessions, accession 3 performs well in terms of morphological character while accession 2 performs well in terms of nutritional component.