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

Combining ability analysis is essentially required to isolate exceptional resource material for heterosis breeding programme. In this experiment combining ability of important agronomic and quality traits were estimated in 6 tomato parents and 30 crosses between them, in order to identify better parents with high combining ability and new recombinants with high yield and superior quality. The comparative heterosis analysis was also done using a commercially demanding variety Abhinav, as a standard check. The results indicated the involvement of both additive and non additive genetic effects in the expression of traits under study, however, preponderance of non-additive gene action was observed. The parents AVTO-2 and NTL-50 were the best performer for comprehensive parameters including yield and the cross combination AVTO-2 x JTL-08-15 was the best high-yielding combiner. The information and the genetic material generated in this study can be used in the future tomato hybrid breeding programme to develop new superior varieties