The Estimate of Combining Ability and Heterosis for Yield and Yield Components in Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.)

A study was conducted on a 10×10 diallel cross set of tomato including reciprocals to find out the extent of heterosis, combining ability for yield per plant (kg) and yield components (number of fruits per plant, individual fruit weight (g)) and locule number. Significant differences among genotypes were obtained for all of traits. The variances for general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) were highly significant indicating the presence of additive as well as non-additive gene effects except the number of fruits per plant and relative magnitude of these variances indicated that additive gene effects were more prominent for all of the traits. The tomato genotype Mb3 proved to be the best general combiner for yield and number of fruits per plant.