Combining Ability Analysis for Yield and Quality Traits in Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

Thirteen parental lines were crossed in line X tester fashion comprising 10 lines and 3 testers at vegetable farm Banaras Hindu University Varanasi to estimate combining ability in tomato for fruit yield, yield components and fruit quality traits. F1 and parents were grown in towards four and half meters in randomized block design with three replications during winter-2010 involvement of both additive and non additive gene action was operated for the control of fruits per plant, fruit weight and average fruit weight. All the fruit quality characters like, total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity, ascorbic acid and lycopene of the fruit were governed by non additive gene action. In most of the traits, over-dominance was predominant. The analysis of components of genetic variance for yield components showed that the main part of genetic variance was due to additive effect. Estimation of general combining ability (GCA) for yield and earliness showed that Pant T-3 had the highest GCA for increasing yield and Punjab Upma had the highest GCA for both earliness and average fruit weight. Cross combination CO-3 X Azad T-5 exhibit significant specific combining ability (SCA) for the most of desirable traits among all cross combinations.