Effects of Some Plant Activators Used on Yield and Quality of Tomato

This study was carried out in Suleyman Demirel University, Faculty of Agriculture, Research and Experimental Station in 2006, an effort to determine the effects of some plant activators used in organic farming to the yield and quality of tomatoes. In the study conducted with the tomato cultivar Baghera F1; such commercial preparations as Manda 31, Messenger, Bi-onur, Cropset, and ISR 2000 were used as the plant activators. To determine the effects of the plant activators, the criteria which can be defined as the yield, number of fruit, weight of fruit, fruit width, fruit length, pH, lycopen, vitamin A, brix, flesh firmness were studied. Within the organic production method used as the plant activator, the highest yield was obtained from Manda 31 (7301 kg/da), and this followed by Cropset (7261 kg/da), Bionur (7187 kg/da), Messenger (7013 kg/da), and ISR 2000 (6389 kg/da), respectively. During the experiment, the lowest yield was obtained from the control method (6202 kg/da), whereas the highest one was achieved from the conventional production method (7602 kg/da). Although the conventional production method ranked first in yield, it was statistically in the same group with Manda 31, Cropset, and Bionur. The highest fruit number per plant was obtained using Manda 31 and Bionur (18 fruits per plant). The plant activators Manda 31 and Bionur has increased the number of fruits by 12,5 %. According to the study, pH ranged between 4,37 and 4,58; lycopen 66 and 137 μg/g; vitamin A 14,7 and 38,9 μg/g; brix 3,90 and 4,46. % ISR 2000 and Bionur had an effect which led the fruit acidity to decrease. Flesh firmness ranged between 1,35 and 1,60 kg/cm2, and the plant activators have played a remarkable role in increasing the flesh firmness.