Genetic analysis of agronomic and biochemical variables among different tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) accessions

Abstract

In the present study, thirty accessions of tomato were evaluated for estimation of correlation and path analysis among various quantitative and qualitative characters related to fruit yield. There were highly significant differences among the accessions for all the characters studied as per the analysis of variance. Genotypic correlation coefficients were generally similar in nature and higher in magnitude than the corresponding phenotypic correlation coefficients. The results revealed that the fruit yield plant-1 was significantly and positively correlated with number of fruits plant-1 (0.3119 and 0.3184) followed by fruit set percentage (0.2434 and 0.2499), fruit weight (0.6766 and 0.6731), polar diameter of fruit (0.4687 and 0.4635) at genotypic and phenotypic level, respectively, indicating that effective improvement in fruit yield plant-1 through these characters could be achieved. Fruit weight showed positive and significant genotypic and phenotypic correlation with fruit yield plant-1 by having greatest positive direct effect (1.1298 and 1.1116) on fruit yield plant-1 at both levels, indicating the true relationship between them and the feasibility to exploit the potentiality of this trait for effective direct selection to improve fruit yield plant-1.