QUALITY OF TOMATO FRUIT (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) YIELDS UNDER DIFFERENT PERIODS OF WEED CONTROL AND BRANCH PRUNING

Abstract

The research aims to determine the effect of weeds during the period of weeding and reducing the number of branches on tomato yields. The research was carried out in Mojorejo Village, Junrejo District, Batu City with an altitude of 560 meters above sea level, rainfall of 1600 mm/year, and an average daily temperature of 23°C. The experimental design used was a Randomized Block Design with 2 factors and 3 replications. The first factor is the weeding period (P) which consists of 3 weeding periods, the treatment consists of: without weeding (P0), weeding 2 times at 28 and 56 days after planting (P1), and weeding 4 times at 14, 28, 42 and 56 days after planting (P2). The second factor is pruning the number of tomato plant branches (W) which consists of 3 levels, the treatment consists of without pruning branches (W0), pruning branches leaving 2 branches (W1), pruning branches leaving 4 branches (W2). Observations of harvest results include the number of harvested fruits per plant (number/plant), fruit diameter (cm), fresh fruit weight per fruit (g), and fresh fruit weight per plant (g). The observation data that has been obtained will be analyzed in further tests using the BNJ test with a level of 5% to determine the differences between treatments. The results obtained in this study showed that there was a real influence on the treatment of weeding and pruning branches on tomato yields.