THE EFFECT OF ORGANIC BORON COMPOUNDS AS FERTILIZERS ON ASSIMILATORY PIGMENTS FROM TOMATOES

Boron is an essential micronutrient for plants. From those experiments made for the foliar fertilizations and on the soil with boron organic compounds, it was observed a significant increase in the β-carotene and lycopene content at the treated tomatoes. The β-carotene content was higher for the cases where combined treatment (root + foliar) was applied, compared to only root treatment cases and to blank samples, the values being situated between 23.50 and 47.5 mg/100g of fresh substance. The lycopene content presented an important increase by applying the combined treatment and only the root one, as compared to the blank sample. The values for the treatment cases were between 0.39 and 1.33 mg/kg fresh substance and 0.18 mg/kg fresh substance for the blank case. The content in chlorophyll a and b is lower in the case of combined treatment samples with fertilizers, as compared to only root treated case and untreated blank sample. The values for the combined treatment cases were in the range 18.75-25.75 mg/100g of fresh substance for the chlorophyll a and 6.24-15.50 mg/100g of fresh substance for the chlorophyll b