Shoot Pruning on Fruit and Seed Production of Two Winter Tomato Varieties

This study was aimed to evaluate the effect of different pruning systems on the production of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) during winter in Bangladesh. Plants were pruned differently, such as, one shoot (P1), two shoot (P2), three shoot (P3) with normal pruning (P0) as a check. We used two tomato varieties and these were BARI Tomato 2 (V1) and BARI Tomato 15 (V2). We designed the experiments in complete randomized block design with three replicates. We didn’t found any significant difference for days to 50% flowering, number of fruits/plant, single fruit weight and fruit yield/plant for the pruning treatment irrespective to the varieties. In combination of stem pruning and variety, we found that stem pruning slightly decrease the yield of both tomato varieties. Two shoot pruning (P2) showed highest seed yield (14.5 g/plant; 49.6 kg/ha) and viability (85.2%). The highest seed yield was found from P0V1 (60.2 kg/ha), whereas the lowest (34.7 kg) from P0V2. The highest viability was found from P1V1 and P3V3 (99.0%) and the lowest viability (3.3%) recorded from P1V2. Both varieties performed differently to the different stem pruning. From the result of the current study, at least one/two stem pruning can be suggested for the seed production of tomato.