Abstract
Interrelationships among tomato yield and yield components for moisture stressed tomato in most of Sub-Saharan Africa through foliar sprayed Antitranspirants using path-coefficient analysis that describes a cause-and-effect relationship have not been documented. In view of this, a field experiment was conducted during the two successive dry seasons of 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 at the Teaching and Research Farm of Faculty of Agriculture, Bayero University, Kano. The treatments consisted of two Antitranspirants (Salicylic acid and Benzoic acid) at four concentrations each (0, 200, 400 and 600 ppm) and three moisture stress stages (vegetative, flowering and fruit setting). Antitranspirants and moisture stress constituted the main plots and concentrations were used as sub–plot treatments which were laid out in a spilt-plot design and replicated three times. Significant and positive correlation was observed between number of fruits per plant and average fruit weight. Path-analysis revealed that number of fruits per plant had the highest direct contribution to fruit yield. The highest indirect effect was observed from plant height and number of fruits per plant and also from number of branches per plant and number of fruits per plant at the two locations. Based on this findings selection on characters such as plant height, number of branches per plant, number of fruits per plant and average fruit weight could be useful towards improvement of fruit yield of tomato.
Keywords: path- analysis, correlation, tomato and fruit yield
