Received: 07-08-2014 / Accepted: 10-03-2015
Drought is an environmental factor that adversely affects growth and development of tomato. These experiments were designed to estimate drought tolerance of two tomato varieties (PT18 and VL3000) through physiological parameters and proline content at flowering and young fruit stages. The results showed that leaf relative water content (LRWC) and chlorophyll content of PT18 and VL3000 decreased and had lower level at both flowering stage and young fruit stage in comparison with the control. Proline content, in contrast, increased significantly at flowering and young fruit stage when exposed to water deficit.. PT18 appeared to be better drought tolerant than VL3000.