Genetic Associations Analysis for Fruit Yield and Its Contributing Traits of Indeterminate Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) Germplasm under Open Field Condition

The study was initiated to generate genetic information on characters associations for tomato germplasm under open field condition. Nineteen indeterminate tomato germplasm were evaluated to estimate the nature and magnitude of associations of different characters with fruit yield and among themselves at Vegetable Research Farm, Department of Horticulture, SHIATS, Allahabad (India) during 2012-2013. The experiment was conducted using a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Estimates of genetic parameters revealed that fruit yield was significantly and positively correlated with number of flowers per plant (0.2894 and 0.2891) followed by number of fruits per plant (0.4480 and 0.4486) and fruit weight (0.6223 and 0.6230) at genotypic and phenotypic level, respectively, strong association of these traits revealed that the selection based on these traits would ultimately improve the fruit yield and it is also suggested that hybridization of genotypes possessing combination of above characters is most useful for obtaining desirable high yielding segregation. In order to obtain a clear picture of the inter relationship between fruit yield per plant and its components, direct and indirect effects were measured using path coefficient analysis. Fruit weight had a very high positive direct genotypic and phenotypic effect 0.9566 and 0.9442, respectively on fruit yield per plant followed by number of flowers per plant, fruit set per cent, number of fruits per plant, TSS oBrix, plant height, radial diameter of fruit, leaf curl incidence per cent and days to 50% flowering. The characters showed high direct effect on yield per plant indicated that direct selection for these traits might be effective and there is a possibility of improving yield per plant through selection based on these characters. Residual effect was considerably low (0.0611 and 0.0751) which indicated that characters included in this study explained almost all variability towards yield.