Abstracts |
An investigation using four biofertilizers, namely Azotobacter, Azospirillum, Pseudomonas and vesicular arbuscular mycorrhiza (VAM), was undertaken during the summer seasons of 2002 and 2003, in Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India, to study their role on various aspects of tomato seed production. Application of these biofertilizers was done with three methods, i.e nursery soil treatment, seedling treatment and field soil treatment, individually and in combinations. Basal application of FYM (25 t/ha) was given to all the plots except control where only recommended dose of NPK (100, 75 and 55 kg/ha) was applied. The study revealed that Azotobacter when applied to nursery, seedling and field soil resulted in maximum values of number of fruits per plant (19.23), fruit yield per plant (1109 g) and per hectare (356.9 q), 1000-seed weight (3.63 g), seed yield per plant (4.58 g) and per hectare (152.70 kg), and cost:benefit ratio (1:1.45). However, the results with respect to germination percentage of seeds remained non-significant.. |