Background

This is the season for planting tomatoes, although tomato cultivation is done all year round, this time farmers can earn a good income by cultivating tomatoes. Farmers can cultivate tomatoes by preparing tomato nurseries from time to time, October is the best time to prepare nurseries in trays. The plant can be grown quick & healthy in this and plants are used to grow in a normal manner. The plants which are grown in normal manner are healthy and disease free, therefore, prepares the plant in a normal way. "Tomato plant does not tolerate much cold and high humidity. Due to the adverse weather, its cultivation is badly affected. Different varieties of different seasons should be grown for seed development, germination, flowering, and fruit. Temperature below 10-degree centigrade and temperatures above 38 degrees centigrade slow down the development of the plant.

Land Preparation- Tomato requires sandy loam soils for better growth. Land preparation requires two to three good deep ploughings. To prepare healthy and strong plants, 10 gm of ammonium phosphate and 1.5-2.0 kg. The dung should be composted at the rate of 10 MT per Acres. The length of the rows can be kept according to the ease of the operations.

Good Verities- Some good tomatoes Hybrids are Abhilash , HeemSohna, Alankar etc are some of the good hybrids. Tomato varieties commonly grown are : Pusa Gaurav, Pusa Sheetal, Salenagola, Sala Nabda, VL Tomato-1, Azad T-2, Arka Development, Arka Saurabh, Pant T-3 Hybrid varieties: Rupali, Navin, Avinash-2 , Pusa Hybrid-4, Manisha, Vishali, Pusa Hybrid-2, Rakshita, DRL-304, N. S. 852, Archana, Arka, Emperor, Arka Ananya seeds.

Seed Rate: 100-gram seed of Hybrid varieties is sufficient for one hectare. 250-300 Gms of open-pollinated seed is required for the sowing of one hectare.

Nursery Preparation- Nursery to be prepared on the ridge beds. The beds can be made 1 meter wide and 15 cm ridge from the ground surface. Length of the bed can be according to the ease of operations. Seeds can be sown one by one in lines with the distance of 4-5 cms.

Transplanting In Main Field –The tomato plant can be transplanted in the main field after 25-30days of the sowing. Width between the rows can be kept 3 meters. The beds are to be mad at the height of at least 25-30 cm from the surface of the ground. The plants to be transplanted in rows at the distance of 1-2 feet distance from plant to plant. The Row to Row distance can be kept 3-3.5 Feet.

Irrigations- Tomato plants do not require standing water in the field. The drip irrigation system is best for the cultivation of tomato. Irrigation can be given on the interval of 6-7 days in the summers and 12-15 days interval in the winters.

Fertilizer Management- Fertilizers- For the hybrid varieties, tomatoes need a good amount of fertilizers. One acre of crop requires 60:36:36 Kg of NPK which can be given in a variety of combinations. This can be supplied by applying 130 Kg Urea, 225 Kg SSP and 60 kg of MoP per acre. Urea is advised to apply in three equal doses.

Disease and pest management- Tomato is sensitive to many of the disease and pest, time to time scouting of the field and proper disease pest management is required for better crop yield

Harvesting- Most of the tomato varieties starts ripening at after the 70-75 days of transplanting. One acre if good tomato crop yields up to 7- 10 mt of tomato.