Abstract

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is one of the major and well accepted fruit vegetable crops worldwide. A field experiment was conducted in Gurage zone, Southern Ethiopia during 2016 cropping season to investigate the adaptability and performance of nationally released tomato varieties and to identify the best performer variety. A randomized block design was used to compare the performance of four varieties (viz., Chali, Cochoro, Fetan and Metadel). The results of the statistical analysis showed that the varieties varied in terms of all growth and yield attributes. The plant height of Metadel variety was higher than that of the other varieties. Metadel variety had significantly larger number of fruits per cluster, fruit diameter and individual fruit weight than those of the other varieties, which resulted this variety to be the best performer in terms of marketable fruit yield giving 48 t/ha. Cochoro variety was the least performer yielding 33.51 t/ha. There was no significant difference between the mean yields of Fetan and Chali varieties. The evidence of this study suggests that among the four recently released tomato varieties, Metadel variety is the best performer and is recommended in the southern part of Ethiopia.