Studies on Heterosis for various qualitative and quantitative characters in Tomato (Lycopersicon Esculentum L.)

An experiment on heterosis for yield and other component characters of 50 F1 hybrids of tomato derived from the crosses between 10 lines and 5 testers through line x tester technique was conducted at the Research Farm of the Department of Vegetable Science, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar during 2012-13 and 2013-14. The analysis of variance indicated significantly higher amount of differences among treatments for all the characters studied, suggesting the presence of genetic variation among the studied genotypes. In this study, among crosses, the cross combinations in favourable direction was observed for EC 620380 x Punjab Chhuhara. The cross BBWR-11-1 x Palam Pink recorded significantly maximum heterosis for days to 50% flowering and number of fruits per plant and the cross Punjab Varkha Bahar-2 x Hisar Lalit (0.400), EC 620383 x Palam Pink (0.383) and BBWR-10-3-18 x Hisar Lalit (0.382) for higher early fruit yield per plant (kg) as compared to standard checks. The cross EC 620380 x Punjab Chhuhara (0.133 kg) produced the minimum early yield and the cross EC 620391 x Punjab Chhuhara (0.886 kg) the maximum total yield per plant, manifesting higher heterosis for yield per plant. Similarly, the cross Punjab Varkha Bahar-2 x Hisar Lalit (0.88%) registered acidity more than the standard check Hisar Arun.