Climate and soil

• Tomato is a warm season crop.Being the day neutral plant it can be grown through out the year.
• It is Moderate season crop (20° for night and 30°C for day) and does not tolerate
• Winter crop for Terai and Summer crop for mid hills
• High temp. followed by low humidity and dry winds increases flower drop
• for pollen grain germination- 21-23°C and seed germination 18-30°C
• Major three pigments- lycopene pigment (red), carotenoid pigment (yellow) and prolycopene (tangerine) develop.
• Below 10 °C the tomato will not develop red and yellow pigments.
• Red and yellow develop at 10-25°C. Above 30°C red color is suppressed.Above 40 °C lycopene is denatured.
• High temperature also affects fruit size. Temp. below 18°C provides larger fruit, fairly light ,well drained fertile ,loam soil of ph 7 is preferred
• The optimum temperature for color development is 10-20 degree Celsius