IMPROVEMENT OF QUALITY OF TOMATO FRUIT (Lycopersicum esculentum Mill.) THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF THE ONION RED EXTRACT AS A SOURCE OF GIBERELIN

    Tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum Mill.) Is a fruit with many benefits. Tomatoes can be eaten as fresh fruit, used as a flavoring agent for a variety of dishes, such as soups, chili sauce, also used as an ingredient in food and beverage industries such as juice drinks, juices, and tomato sauce.

               Tomatoes are preferred by the general public who have thick meat and a small amount of seeds. Efforts that can be made to improve the quality and production of tomatoes is by giving growth regulators (PGR). ZPT is a non-nutritional organic compound that is active in low concentrations (<1 mM) that can stimulate, inhibit, or change plant growth and development quantitatively or qualitatively, can be produced by plants (natural / endogenous) or synthetic (exogenous). Gibberellic acid (Gibberelic Acid) is one of the ZPT that can stimulate flowering, parthenocarpy fruit formation, mobilization of carbohydrates during germination and other plant physiological aspects. The problem that arises is the high price of synthetic GA. The solution to the high price of GA is to utilize natural ingredients as a source of GA. One of the plants that contains onion GA.

               This study aims to determine the role of onion extract on the quality of tomatoes. The study was conducted at the Experimental Garden of the Faculty of Agriculture of Udayana University, the Agronomy and Horticulture Laboratory, and the Food Analysis Laboratory of the Faculty of Agricultural Technology, Udayana University. This research was compiled using RAK (Randomized Group Design) consisting of 1 factor, namely the concentration of onion extract with 5 treatments and each treatment was repeated 4 times. E0 = without sprayed onion, E1 = onion extract concentration of 25%, E2 = onion extract concentration of 50%, E3 = onion extract concentration of 75%, and E4 = onion extract concentration of 100%.

               This research is expected to provide the best concentration of onion extract recommendations that can be used to improve the quality of tomatoes. The quality in question is reduced seed content, larger fruit size, and increased vitamin C content in tomatoes.

Keywords: Tomato, natural gibberellins, onion, fruit quality