Heterosis and combining ability in tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum L.)

Present study was carried out to develop F1hybrids with high yield and quality in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) through diallel crossing involving six parents. The studies revealed that the remarkable heterosis for earliness, plant height, and laterals per plant were observed over the better parent. In order of merit, the three best performing Fl hybrids (P1 xP5), (P3xP6) and (P2xP3) exhibited heterosis percentage of -8.57, 14.43 and 13.90 respectively, for marketable fruit weight and fruit yield over the standard check P5xP3, P3xP6 and P6xP5 yielding 116.61 % over the standard parent, these promising crosses also recorded the positive sca. The high performing crosses for important characters showed that in general these crosses involved high x high, high x medium, medium x low and high x low, general combiners. The low x low crosses giving high sca values may be due to the genetic diversity of the parents and non allelic interaction.