HETEROSIS STUDIES FOR YIELD ANDITS ATTRIBUTING TRAITS IN TOMATO UNDER MID-HILL CONDITIONS OF GARHWAL.

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.), a self-pollinated vegetablecrop of solanaceae family, ranks second in importance after potato but tops the list of processed vegetables. Heterosis breeding is reliable and quick approach to gain maximum crop improvement. Six diverse tomato cultivars/ lines viz, Arka Saurabh, Arka Abha, Arka Meghali, Punjab Chhuhara, Best of All and Sioux, selected on the basis of high yield coupled with high quality, were crossed in a half diallel fashion to obtain fifteen cross combinations. Arka Meghali x Punjab Chhuhara found to be the best cross combination which have significant heterosis of all three types for vitals yield attributing traits, i.e. number of fruits per cluster and number of fruit clusters per plant in spite of that for number of fruits per plant didn’t have significant heterotic results in favourable direction.Hybrids have reported greater plant heights as compared to mid parents.Most of the crosses manifested highly significant heterosis for fruit length and fruit breadth that reflect that hybrids have better chance of having bigger fruits. For average fruit weight, Arka Abha x Arka Meghali, Arka Meghali x Punjab Chhuhara proved to be the best hybrids which has expressed significant positive results for both types of heterosis. Overall, top three cross combinations for fruit yield per plant as per their per se performance, Arka Abha x Punjab Chhuhara, Arka Meghali x Punjab Chhuhara, Punjab Chhuhara x Best of All came out to be expressing significantly positive standard heterosis. Present investigation found sufficient heterotic potential in the parental cultivars that can be utilized to develop improved recombinant or hybrids genotypes.