Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Abstract

Effect of Drought Stress on Tomato cv. Bombino

Sher Hassan Khan, Arsalan Khan, Uzma Litaf, Abdul Sattar Shah, Muhammad Ali Khan, Muhammad Bilal and Muhammad Usman Ali

To study “the effect of drought stress on Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) Cv. Bombino” an experiment was conducted at Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Agricultural University Peshawar. Tomato plants were grown in green house under two different conditions of water availability i.e.- controlled and drought. The parameters studied were relative water content (%), proline content (μmoles) and relative growth rate (week?1). Drought stress has significant effect on all parameters studied. The relative water content of plant body decline during drought due to less water availability. In controlled environment, the mean value of relative water content was 89.28 while that observed in drought condition was 87.73. Proline was observed on rise due to continuous decrease in water quantity in cell sap. The value of proline content is 4.4 μmoles g?1 fresh weight in controlled condition whereas that the plants in drought condition had 5.8 μmoles g?1 fresh weight. Due to less water, photosynthesis was negatively affected which resulted in less energy production and finally low growth. In controlled condition the relative growth rate week?1 on fresh weight was 1.37 gm whereas that of plant in drought condition was 0.57 gm.