Effect of Sesbania extract and chemical fertilizers on the growth and yield of tomato plants.

The study was conducted in the winter season of 2022-2021 in the Department of biology, College of Education, University of Samarra, to evaluate the effectiveness of some plant extracts on the growth and productivity of tomato plants, as well as comparing their use with chemical fertilizers. The results indicated that the spraying with Sesbania extract had positive significant differences in the characteristics of vegetative growth compared with plants that were not sprayed with it, where the treatments (S1) achieved the highest rate of leaves numbers amounted to (380) leaves, and the highest rate of leaf area was (4.424) cm2 compared with (S0) (sprayed with water only) gave the lowest average leaf area (2.132) cm2, and the least number of leaves (114.2) Also, the interaction between extracts and chemical fertilizers had a significant effect on some vegetative characteristics such as stem height, where the treatments (FS1) achieved the highest stem height amounted to (41.75) cm, compared with those that did not use extracts or chemical fertilizers such as treatment (S0) that gave the lowest rate of stem height which was (30) cm. The results also showed the effect of Sesbania extract on the production traits (yield), which had a significant and clear effect on the characteristic of fruit diameter, weight and number. The treatments (S1) gave the highest average fruit diameter (10.75) cm, and the highest average fruit weight (95) g, and the highest average number of fruits (8) compared with factor (F) (which treatment with chemical fertilizers), which recorded the lowest average fruit diameter (2.75) cm, and the lowest average fruit weight (21.5), and the treatments (S0) (sprayed with water only) were lower Average number of fruits (3) only fruit per plant, so it is the lowest rate among all treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]