Impact of Organic Amendments on Biochemical Characteristics of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum Mill.)
Abstract:
A pot experiment was carried out to study the impact of organic amendments on the biochemical characteristics of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum Mill.) at the experimental farm, SKUAST-Kashmir, Shalimar. The experiment was laid out in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with 3 replications. The experiment comprised of nine treatment combinations of sewage sludge (SS), aquatic weed compost (AWC) and recommended nitrogen dose (RND) viz., T1 (100% RND), T2 (100% AWC), T3 (100% SS), T4 (30% AWC + 70% RND), T5 (30% SS + 70% RND), T6 (50% AWC + 50% RND), T7 (50% SS + 50% RND), T8 (30% AWC + 30% SS + 40% RND), and T9 (50% AWC + 50% SS). The study revealed that biochemical parameters viz., total phenols (mg kg-1), β-carotene content (mg kg-1), lycopene content (mg %), carotenoid content (mg g-1), total chlorophyll (mg g-1) were significantly higher in T5 i.e. 9.62, 11.87, 13.03, 2.66 and 2.14 as compared to other treatments including T1 (RND) i.e. 9.18, 11.83, 12.78, 2.49 and 2.09 respectively whereas elevated levels of ascorbic acid content (mg %), was recorded under T3 i.e. 22.94 while compared to other treatments including T1 (RND) i.e. 19.81. The study concludes with the findings that the application of T5 (30% SS + 70% RND) exhibited better biochemical characteristics in tomato.