IMPROVEMENT OF TOMATO (Lycopersicon esculentum) YIELD AND SOIL PROPERTIES BY USING CHITOSAN RAW MATERIAL POWDER

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Agriculture Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Of MASTER OF SCIENCE (MS) IN SOIL SCIENCE SEMESTER: JULY-DECEMBER, 2018

Chitosan raw material powder has many uses to plant nutrient supply and modifies growth, yield and yield attributes of plants. An experiment was conducted at the research farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, during the period from November 2018 to March 2019 to study improvement of tomato yield and soil properties using chitosan raw material powder. The test crop was BARI Tomato-15. Five levels of chitosan raw material powder were used in the experiment viz.T 1 : 0 t/ha, T 2 : 0.5 t/ha, T 3 : 1.0 t/ha: T 4 : 1.5 t/ha and T 5 :2.0 t/ha. The experiment was conducted using Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications. The results of the experiment revealed that plant height (cm), number of fruit clusters/plant, number of fruits/plant, Individual fruit weight (g), fruit yield (t/ha) were significantly influenced by the effect of chitosan raw material powder. Most of the morphological and yield attributes were increased with increasing doses of chitosan raw material powder, whereas control plants showed the lowest value of the above parameters. Maximum fruit yield, number of fruits/plant, number of fruit clusters/plant and individual fruit weight were found in the T 3 treatment; whereas the minimum result of those parameter were obtained in the control, T 1, treatment. Among the parameters plant height was recorded highest in the T 5 treatment, lowest was in the control treatment, T 1 . The results also showed that soil organic carbon content was increased significantly with the application of chitosan raw material powder. The chitosan raw material powder was alkaline in nature and increased pH of the post-harvest soil. Taken together, our results indicate that application of chitosan raw material have positive role on the improvement of tomato yield, yield parameters and SOC content. The results might be due to the supply of some essential plant nutrients and growth promoting hormones.