Abstract: Sulphur dioxide (SO
2), belongs to a group of highly reactive gaseous pollutants “oxides of sulphur,” that are emitted into the air upon fossil fuel burning and other sulphur-containing discharges from the industry. SO
2 is known to cause damage to plantations and crops by adversely affecting the productivity and the quality of the economic produce. We hypothesize that there exists an inter and intra-species variation with respect to the SO
2 response, which can be exploited. To understand the SO
2 tolerance of crop plants, an experiment was, thus, conducted with three varieties of tomato (
Solanum lycoperscium), var. H-414, H-445, and H-226, developed by IARI, New Delhi to assess their SO
2 response in terms of the growth, yield and biochemical attributes under the ambient (~7 to 25µg SO
2 m
-3) and enriched SO
2 (ambient SO
2 + ?10 to 15µg SO
2 m
-3). An assessment of crop utilization of SO
2-S as a nutrient source suggests that the variety H-445 was the most potent, H-414 slightly able to absorb and H-226 was the least efficient. The SO
2-mediated damage was observed to increase gradually following the ESO
2 exposure duration in the var. H-414 as against the response in var. H-445 which showed a higher initial ESO
2 damage at 0 DAE but later showed a greater recovery from 0 to 14 DAE. The SO
2 enrichment of the air environment under tomato cultivation was also found to contribute towards the plant’s S-requirement in variety H-445, which promoted its vegetative growth even under the stressful environment. Besides genetic variation in SO
2 tolerance in tomatoes, the results also indicate greater adaptability and tolerance in var. H-445 to an elevated SO
2 stress when compared to the other experimental tomato cultivars. Identification of air pollutant tolerant cultivars across crops may help protect the productivity and quality of the major dietary crops, which are likely to be threatened by climate change in the near future.
