Tomato is an important vegetable in Ghanaian diet and contributes enormously in livelihood improvement. Tomato production is threatened by a high prevalence of biotic and abiotic stresses as well as increased postharvest losses and poor agronomic practices, thereby resulting in massive importation of tomato and its products to meet the local demands. The recent introduction of greenhouse vegetable cultivation technology in Ghana is a sustainable attempt in addressing and ensuring year-round production of vegetables including tomato. However, research on agronomic practices targeted to improving yield and fruit quality under greenhouse conditions in Ghana is scarcely available. Therefore, this study seeks to evaluate the effect of plant spacing and topping on tomato yield and fruit quality under greenhouse conditions. A 3 ×3 factorial treatment arranged in a completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications was used. Two factors, plant spacing and topping with each having three levels, were used. Thus, the levels for plant spacing were 0.15 m × 1.3 m, 0.2 m × 1.3 m, and 0.3 m × 1.3 m while topping treatments at trusses 2, 3, and 4 (control) were done. The results showed that yield was significantly influenced by plant spacing in both experiments. The interaction effect of 0.2 m × 1.3 m plant spacing and topping at truss 2 showed significantly higher yields. Furthermore, juice volume was significantly increased by plant spacing. Again, 0.2 m × 1.3 m plant spacing by truss 2 topping interaction produced the highest juice volume. Therefore, these agronomic practices could be an essential and effective approach in achieving higher tomato production with improved fruit quality under greenhouse cultivation to ensure sustainable food security.

Greenhouse vegetable cultivation offers one of the optimistic approaches to ensuring sustainable food and nutrition security in the tropics. Although greenhouse vegetable production is known to be costly, this system of production is gaining popularity and contributes to sustainable tomato production with improved fruit quality and productivity, which results in higher economic returns. Among vegetable crops, tomato is the most cultivated under this system. A study was conducted to identify suitable soilless media for regenerating tomato cuttings from axillary stem of tomato plants and to assess the agronomic performance of the regenerated cuttings under greenhouse condition. The tomato cuttings were raised using 100% rice husk biochar, 100% rice husk, 100% cocopeat, 50% biochar +50% cocopeat, 50% cocopeat +50% rice husk. Two tomato hybrid varieties (Lebombo and Anna) were used. Cuttings from axillary stems were compared with those raised from seed. A 2 × 2 factorial experiment was arranged in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with four replications. From the study, 100% rice husk biochar was found to induce root development in stem cuttings of tomato. However, no significant differences in yield and fruit quality were found between plants raised from seed and those from stem cuttings.

Cryptolepis sanguinolenta (Cs) is a medicinal plant, indigenous to the West Africa sub-region and has been utilized in Ghana to treat malaria for generations. Besides being used as an antimalarial treatment in Ghana, Cs has been noted as being used in the US to treat Babesia, Lyme disease (Borreliosis burgdorferi), Bartonella, among others. The plant contains several indoloquinoline alkaloids, mainly concentrated in its root system, giving the plant its antimicrobial, antihyperglycemic, and anticancer properties. However, the destructive harvesting of the entire plant, along with its root system, is not sustainable over the long term and has already resulted in a substantial decrease in wild populations, threatening its long-term potential and survivability. This book chapter will discuss its uses, conservation strategies and cultivation protocols developed for Cs to ensure a reliable supply of plant material as well as its sustainable utilization.

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Unique variants are desired in the development of genetically improved crops to meet farmer and market needs hence ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS) was used to induce genetic variability in cowpea (Vigna unguiculata cv. Asontem). The main objective of this research was to characterize induced variations in EMS chemically mutagenized population of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp Var. Asontem) in the M1 and M2 generations. The optimum concentration (LD50) of EMS for generating the mutagenized population was determined by treating seeds with different concentrations of EMS (0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8% v/v) and observing the germination count after 5 days of planting the seeds in Petri dishes. Three thousand cowpea seeds were treated with the 0.4% EMS to generate the M1 and M2 populations that were evaluated for agronomic and morphological traits with untreated seeds serving as control. Data analysis involved distribution of qualitative and quantitative traits. Germination was significantly reduced in the mutagenized population (17.8%) and compared with that of the wild type (61.6%). Percentage survival was significantly higher in wild type (98.38%) as compared with the M1 population (78.46%). Percentage germination in the M2 population (74.03%) was lower than the wild type (80%). A wide spectrum of agro-morphological abnormalities was observed in the M2 population. Wide variations and uniquely different phenotypic classes were observed in leaf color, leaf shape, growth habit, plant pigmentation, twining tendency, pod curvature, seed shape, and seed coat color. M2 individuals were widely distributed for days to flowering, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, number of locules per pods, percentage seed set, pod length and number of seeds per plant. In conclusion, the EMS mutagenesis was effective in inducing the unique variations that will be useful for breeding and development of new farmer preferred varieties.

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