Heterosis Studies for Growth and Yield Traits in Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

Standard heterosis over one check (DVRT-1) was experimented with thirty hybrids of tomato. Most of these hybrids proved to have unique variation for growth and yield traits in tomato. Standard heterosis over check for total yield/plant was recorded 99.76 %. Highest Heterosis variation was fund to be in number of primary branches/plant, followed by average fruit weight, fruit yield (q/ha), number of fruits/plant, number of fruits / cluster. The statistically ‘highest significant positive standard heterosis for fruit yield (q/ha) was recorded in hybrid EC-570028 × EC-520061(99.76 %.), followed by hybrids EC-552141 × EC-520061 (96.57 %) and EC-552141 × Hisar Arun (96.43 %). The hybridEC-620500×Hisar Arun (-29.82 %) found to have the “statistically highest significant positive standard heterosis” for days to 50 % flowering, followed by hybridsEC-538405×EC-520061 (-13.06 %) and EC-538405 × Hisar Arun (-16.26). Thus these hybrids can be utilized by breeders for developing early flowering, maturing and fruiting types of tomato varieties. Thus from this experimentation we concluded that for the development of commercially high yielding tomato hybrids the breeder should include or select parents with high desirable genetic variability.