Yield Performance of Tomato Hybrids during the Summer Season in Sylhet

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the yield performance of five new hybrid combinations of tomato (DCH1, DCH2, DCH3, TCH1 and TCH2) along with BARI Hybrid Tomato-4 at the experimental field of Horticulture Department, Sylhet Agricultural University in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) under with and without hormone application systems (4-para chlorophenoxy acitic acid) during the summer season from May to September 2015. Both hybrids and hormone application systems had a significant influence on growth and yield of tomato during summer. The hybrid, BARI Hybrid Tomato-4 produced the highest number of fruits plant-1 (22.67) and fruit yield plant-1 (0.89 kg) closely followed by TCH1 (0.84 kg plant-1). The hybrid DCH3 produced the heaviest individual fruit weight (46.65 g), but its plant yield was only 0.63 kg. The number of fruits plant-1, individual fruit weight and fruit yield were largely affected due to hormone application. Fruit yield plant-1 was quite high in the hormone-treated plant (0.82 kg) compared to untreated plant (0.68 kg). In general, all the hybrids performed better when treated with the hormone in respect of yield compared to their corresponding untreated plants. Among the hybrids, BARI Hybrid Tomato-4 had the highest fruit yield (1.03 kg plant-1) followed by TCH1 (0.92 kg plant-1) when the plants were treated with the hormone. These two hybrids again produced appreciable amount of tomato under untreated condition (0.75 kg plant-1 and 0.77 kg plant-1, respectively). This indicates that, there is a possible scope of tomato production during the summer season in Sylhet region with and without hormone application, though hormone application had benefit on fruit yield.