Heterosis studies for yield and yield attributing traits in tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum L.) under temperate conditions of Kashmir

Abstract

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.), a self-pollinated vegetable crop of solanaceae family, ranks second in importance after potato but tops the list of processed vegetables. Heterosis breeding is reliable and quick approach to gain maximum crop improvement. Twelve diverse tomato cultivars/ lines, selected on the basis of high yield coupled with high quality, were crossed in a half diallel fashion to obtain sixty-six cross combinations. For fruit yield hectare-1 the extent of heterosis over standard parent was in the range of -63.23 to 46.85% in SKAU-T-9801×SKAU-T-1700 and SKAU-T-1219 × SKAU-T-1429 respectively. Based on standard parent heterosis best cross combinations were SKAU-T-1219 × SKAU-T-1429, SKAU-T-1429 × SKAU-T-9862 and SKAU-T-1219 × SKAU-T-1701 exhibiting the heterosis of 46.85, 44.29 and 43.35% respectively. From results it was found that heterosis for yield and yield attributing traits revealed wide range of heterotic patterns were present among the crosses for different traits. The performance of crosses revealed that crosses SKAU-T-1219 × SKAU-T-1429, SKAU-T-1429 × SKAU-T-9862, SKAU-T-1219 × SKAU-T-1701 and SKAU-T-1009 × SKAU-T-1464 exhibited significant and desirable heterosis over the check for most of the yield and yield attributing traits. The significant heterosis with respect to yield and yield attributes indicates that some good number of hybrids could be developed in tomato and there exists a great scope for selection of high yielding lines from segregating generations.