INFLUENCE OF CONTAINER TYPE AND COLOR ON THE EMERGENCE, GROWTH AND YIELD OF TOMATOES (Solanum lycopersicum).

Container or Pot farming as an alternative viable way of cropping is popular in rural, semi-urban and urban homes. As a measure to achieve optimum crop production in pot farming, an experiment was carried out on the influence of container type and colour on emergence, growth and yield of tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum)a at the Teaching and Research Farm of the Department of Crop Science and Technology, School of Agriculture and Agricultural Technology, Federal University of Technology, Owerri. The treatments were four container types (metal, wood, clay, and polythene) and four colours of container (black, yellow, green and red), in a 2 x 4 factorial experiment laid out in a complete randomized design (CRD) with 3 replications. Data were collected on the following parameters days to emergence, days to 50% emergence, plant height at 3, 6 and WAP, number of leaves at 3, 6, and 9 WAP, number of branches at 3, 6 and 9 WAP, days to flowering and number of fruits per plant. Container type showed significant differences in all the parameters evaluated except for germination assessment traits. The colour of the containers showed significant difference only on yield parameters. Specifically black coloured containers made of wood had the best performance in all parameters evaluated while clay pots had the least performance. Black wooden containers can support appreciable increase in tomato production.