Effect of tomato fruit early blight incidence, fruit size and cultivar on market value of tomato in Minab area

Tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum) is considered one of the most popular vegetables and its products are widely used in the world. Many pests and pathogens impose economic losses to the crop through causing significant reductions in tomato yield. Among these, early blight of tomato caused by Alternaria solani has been reported to be the most prevalent and destructive disease of tomato throughout the tomato growing areas. The disease causes annual losses exceeding millions of dollars worldwide. Early blight of tomato is one of the major factors limiting tomato production in Iran. This survey was conducted to evaluate the effect of incidence of tomato fruit early blight, the fruit size and cultivar on the market value of tomato measured as sale price of the product in local tomato fields of Minab County. In this survey, four classes (no, mild, medium and severe) of disease severity in three size classes (small, medium and large) of three tomato cultivars (Sunseed, Redx and Raha) were used. Disease incidence in tomato samples varied from 0% to 100% early blight. The results showed that increased fruit early blight disease incidence significantly reduced selling price of tomato and rise in fruit size resulted in increase in selling price but the effect of size on sale price in sample with blight incidence higher than 50% was steadily decreased. Also the Raha cultivar sale price was lower than Sunseed and Redx cultivars.