Morphological Diversity of Tomato Germplasm (Lycopersicum esculentum L.) for Yield Traits

Author: Durga Hemanth Kumar Ch, Narm Naidu L., Ravindra Babu M., Rajani A., Gopal K. and Paratpara Rao M.

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Abstract

The goal of this study was to determine the genetic diversity of 60 tomato genotypes for fruit yield and related traits using a field experiment in an RBD with three replications. The Mahalanobis distance (D2) was used to calculate the genetic distance between clusters. Cluster analysis revealed that the genotypes were divided into 11 distinct clusters, with cluster I having the most genotypes (43), and clusters II through XI being monogenetic. The inter-cluster distances ranged from 9698.09 (between clusters II and IX) to 47564.45 (between clusters IX and X). Intra-cluster distances ranged between 0.00 (in monogenotypic clusters) and 10787.58 (in cluster I). The number of fruits per plant contributed the most to genetic divergence (17.40%), followed by average fruit weight. Seven lines (VRSL 8, VRSL 18, VRSL 24, VRSL 44, VRSL 66, VRSL 87, and VRSL 104) were chosen as potential parents for hybridization to produce F1 hybrids and study heterosis and combining ability in tomato based on genetic distance and resistance to ToLCV.

Keywords

Genetic distance, divergence, hybridization

Conclusion

The genetic diversity was measured using Mahalanobis D2 statistics for characters, and the clustering of genotypes resulted in the development of eleven groups. Clusters IX and X had the greatest inter-cluster distance (47564.45), followed by clusters II and X (44457.03). Cluster II and Cluster V had the shortest inter-cluster distance (9988.90). Among the features, the number of fruits per plant (17.40%) and average fruit weight (15.37%) contributed the most to divergence. As a result, the breeder selects genotypes of clusters as parents that have a large inter-cluster distance between them in order to create recombinants and desirable segregates in the crop improvement plan. Maximum percent contribution was observed for no of fruit/plant followed by average fruit weight, pericarp thickness,) days to first fruit harvest, leaf curl virus incidence, no of primary branches/plant and no of flowers/cluster.

References

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How to cite this article

Durga Hemanth Kumar Ch, Narm Naidu L., Ravindra Babu M., Rajani A., Gopal K. and Paratpara Rao M. (2023). Morphological Diversity of Tomato Germplasm (Lycopersicum esculentum L.) for Yield Traits. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 15(10): 1158-1161.