Tropical and subtropical vegetables (2+1)

Climate and soil

• Temperature affects growth and development of tomato plants primarily by controlling biochemical processes. Temperature emerges as the major growth factor through its control on plant development including morphogenesis and product quality and induction of flowering stimuli. Temperature also determines climatic zones and controls plant distribution, growth cycles, and growth rates and ultimately yield.
• Tomato is a warm season crop. It is neither tolerant to frost nor to water logged condition. The optimum ranges of temperature is 20-240C, mean temperature below 160C and above 270C are not desirable. Lycopene content is highest at 21-240C while the production of this pigment drops off rapidly above 270C. Tomato can be grown on variety of soils but better yield is obtained in well drained soil, fairly fertile, rich in organic matter with fair water holding capacity. For early crop, a sandy loam soil is the best, however, for higher yield heavy soils rich in organic matter are preferred. The best soil pH is 6-7.