Date of Award:

5-1952

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Plants, Soils, and Climate

Department name when degree awarded

Vegetable Crops

Committee Chair(s)

J. Clark Ballard

Committee

J. Clark Ballard

Committee

Leslie R. Hawthorn

Abstract

Commercial plantings of tomato hybrids will give increases in earliness and yield because of hybrid vigor, but seed costs become a limiting factor. The necessity of hand-pollination makes the production of first generation hybrid tomato seed a costly enterprise. Failures of fruit set and seed development in artificially pollinated tomatoes are two contributing causes for the increased cost of F1 seed.

The purpose of this investigation is to study some basic factors influencing these failures and to find ways of increasing fruit set and number of seeds per fruit.

The scope in addition to the field studies described includes a review of the literature on tomato pollination and pollen-tube growth, fruit set, and seed development. These studies were designed to indicate how varietal differences and time of pollination affect fruit set and seed development of the tomato.

The significance of this report is that the date herein can be used as a basis for a better understanding of the reproductive phases of the tomato plant. They may also be used as a guide in the development of an F1 hybrid tomato seed industry.

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dce116a578af3bdf85f6f12283ced040

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