African Journal of
Biotechnology

  • Abbreviation: Afr. J. Biotechnol.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1684-5315
  • DOI: 10.5897/AJB
  • Start Year: 2002
  • Published Articles: 12496

Full Length Research Paper

Heterosis for flower and fruit traits in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.)

Rahmani Gul1, Hidayat-Ur-Rahman2, Iftikhar Hussain Khalil2, Syed Mehar Ali Shah2 and Abdul Ghafoor3
1Agricultural Research Institute, Mingora, Swat-Pakistan. 2Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, NWFP Agricultural University, Peshawar-Pakistan. 3National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad-Pakistan.
Email: [email protected]

  •  Accepted: 10 May 2010
  •  Published: 31 July 2010

Abstract

A study was conducted in tomato using an 8 × 8 diallel set excluding reciprocals to quantify the magnitude of heterosis for yield and its five yield components: number of flowers per cluster, number of fruits set per cluster, fruit length, fruit width, fruit weight and fruit yield per plant. Seven accessions and one locally approved variety were crossed in half diallel fashion and the resulting F1 progeny along with their parents were evaluated in a 6 × 6 Tripple Lattice Design at Agricultural Research Institute, Mingora (NWFP), Pakistan during 2007 - 2008 crop season. Highly significant differences were observed among the genotypes for all the studied traits. Highly significant heterosis of positive nature was found for flowers per cluster (53.1 and 37.2%), fruits per cluster (38.9%), fruit length (32.7 and 15.5%), fruit weight (48.7 and 45.0%) and yield per plant (34.9%) over the mid and better parents, respectively. Positive significant heterosis was observed for flowers per cluster (7.4%), fruits per cluster (10.0 and 10.0%), fruit length (8.9%), fruit width (8.7 and 7.9%), fruit weight (14.3 and 12.5%), yield per plant (24%) over the mid and better parents, respectively. Four hybrids possessed significantly useful heterobeltiosis for fruit weight. Three single cross hybrids and four of the parental genotypes were selected for use in subsequent tomato breeding programmes.

 

Key words: Heterosis, tripple lattice design, genotypes, traits, tomato.

Abbreviation

MPH, Mid- parent heterosis; BPH, better parent heterosis; LSD,least significant difference; CV, co-variance.