Tomato Research Paper

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Tomato, Lycopersicon esculentum is second to potato as a vegetable in world food production. Tomato, in its protected state, is an herbaceous perennial, in the Solanaceae, the nightshade family, with fragile, woody, very hairy stem that frequently vines over other plants. It reaches 1-3m in height and bears clusters of comestible fruits classified as vegetables. TAXONOMY (Vashishta, 1974) Kingdom Plantae Division Angiospermae Class Dicotyledons Order Polenomiales Family Solanaceae Species Lycopersicon esculentum ORIGIN Lycopersicon esculentum var cerasiforme is the putative ancestor of the cultivated…show more content…
Two types of tomatoes are currently grown locally for fresh market consumption: cooking tomato and salad tomato. Cooking tomato is usually determinate or semi-determinate in growth habit. The fruits are small, averaging from 25g to 50g, depending on varieties and have an acid taste. It is eaten raw as in chutneys and cooked as in rougaille, curries and soups. Most salad tomato varieties have an indeterminate growth habit and are staked and pruned. Semi-determinate trailing varieties are also available. The fruits are sweet and best eaten raw in salads. Both cooking and salad tomatoes occupy a unique place in Mauritian dish. It is consumed both as fresh fruit as well as in the form of whole fruit, paste, purée, sauces ketchups or powder. Tomato can be grown all year round and everywhere in Mauritius. It does best in humid and sub-humid zones. It grows well in all types of soil but it prefers light, well-drained and fertile soils, which are neutral or slightly acidic (pH 5.5-7.0). The most suitable soils are the P, L, F, H and B groups. Fields that are infested by bacterial wilt must be avoided. Tomato is grown as a pure stand, as interline in the sugarcane fields and in soil-less culture on rock sand by Nutrient Film Technique. The varieties cultivated are: Epoch, MST 32/1, Sirius, Calora, Credo, Dania, Legato, Swaraksha. (Not all the aspects of Tomato Production are presented…show more content…
infestans is typically dispersed aerially one to several miles from the vegetating site to living tomato foliage via sporangia, which can persist exposure to dry, sunny periods for up to an hour and even longer under cloudy conditions. P. infestans infects all aboveground parts of susceptible plants at any stage of plant development (Nelson, 2008). Mycelium of P.infestans is extremely branched and non-septate hyphae enter the intercellular spaces of leaf, stem and fruit. If free moisture (e.g., dew, rainfall, sprinkler irrigation, fog) is present, sporangia can germinate within a few hours after landing on tomato foliage. In the living thin-walled mesophyll cells it forms branched haustorial hyphae to extract nutrients from them (Taylor et al., 1998; Dutta,

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