HETEROSIS AND INBREEDING DEPRESSION FOR SOME POST HARVEST QUALITY TRAITS IN TOMATO

Abstract

Nine promising and divergent varieties of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) were crossed as per exclusive reciprocals diallel design. Low magnitude of heterosis over better parent for PH was observed in 15 crosses which ranged from -1.13 (Sel. -18 X Pusa Ruby) to 13.88 per cent (NT-3 X Punjab Chhuhara). Two best hybrids for ascorbic acid content were Sel.-18 X NT-3 (19.50%) and Money Maker X Punjab Chhuhara (19.04%), where as the cross Pusa Ruby X NT-3 (46.97%) exhibited high degree of heterosis for shelf life of fruits. In case of seed weight per fruits maximuin negative heterosis was observed in cross Money Maker X Marglobe (-23.11%). However, three best heterotic crosses which were found promising as they coupled with other quality traits may be arranged in order Sel.-18 X Hisar Arun; Money Maker X Marglobe and Marglobe X Punjab Chhuhara, could be exploited commercially in hybrid varietal development programme. Inbreeding depression was also observed, though it was varied with crosses.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.A01056

Pages

569 - 573

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

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