Abstract:
Studies on tomato post-harvest losses are the main concern for its production, hence a study was
conducted to evaluate 10 hybrids along with two checks for fruit shelf life and yield components.
For improvement of shelf life of commercial varieties, we used four commercial commercially
varieties and one germplasm were crossed with two testers in line x tester mating fashion to
study combining ability effects and heterosis for plant height, number of branches, fruit per
cluster, single fruit weight, total number of fruits per plant, fruit shelf life and total yield per
plant during summer 2014 at UAS, GKVK, Bangalore, India. The analysis of variance revealed
the variance due to lines effects and crosses were highly significant for fruit shelf life (days). In
respect of GCA effects, Arka Alok observed highest for shelf life and L121 for total yield per
plant. Among the crosses, Vaibhav X RIL-160 and L121 X RIL-108 were the most valuable
combiners for fruit shelf life and total yield per plant. Thus, these two cross combinations
revealed good potential to be used as a hybrid. The highest heterotic effect over mid parent was
exhibited by the cross Vaibhav X RIL-160, Arka Alok X RIL-160 and Arka Alok X RIL-108 for
both characters. We also observed the mean performance of fruit shelf life of all the crosses were
significantly differed with lines. The RIL-160 and RIL-108 both testers can be recommended for
improving the fruit shelf-life and cross can be forwarded to multilocation trial |
