ABSTRACT

Screen house experiment was conducted in the dry season of October 2021 to March 2022 at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Benin, Benin city, to study the effects of direct seeding and transplanting on tomato varieties.  The trial was laid out in a completely randomize design (CRD) with 3 replications consisting of 8 treatments of planting methods on four tomato varieties [DV1 (Direct sowing local variety), DV2 (Direct sowing F1 Cobra 26), DV3 (Direct sowing F1 Cobra 34), DV4 (Direct sowing Mona), TV1 (Transplant local variety), TV2 (Transplant F1 cobra 26), TV3 (Transplant F1 Cobra 34) and TV4 (Transplant F1 Mona)]. The parameters measured were plant height, number of leaves, number of branches, stem diameter and leaf area, days to flowering, number of flowers, number of fruits, fruit length, fruit diameter, fruit weight and harvest index. The results showed that the varietal treatments were not significant on the parameters measured except on the number of leaves, day to flowering, fruit diameter which was significant while the number of branches, fruit weight and harvest index had high significance. The highest mean number of leaves (86.9) were recorded in TV1 followed by DV1 (86.00) having the highest number of branches (14.00) and earliest day of flowering (51.33 days). TV2 had the highest fruit length (4.40), followed by DV2 (4.35) having the highest number of flowers (31.50), number of fruits similar to DV2 (3.50), fruit diameter (3.91), mean fruit weight (102.00), harvest index (6.34) and largest leaf area (23.74cm²) while TV3 had the largest fruit diameter and TV4 with the largest stem diameter (0.80). Considering the overall performance, DV1 had the highest growth performance while DV2 and TV2 had the highest yield performance.