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PATH COEFFICIENT ANALYSIS OF YIELD COMPONENT IN TOMATO (LYCOPERSICON ESCULENTUM)

HIDAYATULLAH*, SHAKEEL AHMAD JATOI, ABDUL GHAFOOR AND TARIQ MAHMOOD

Abstract: Thirty six tomato genotypes, including cultivar, were evaluated at National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad, during summer, 2002 and 2003 to estimate the nature and magnitude of genetic variability based on days to first harvest, number of pickings, plant height, number of fruit plant-1, fruit weight plant-1, fruit size, single fruit weight, number of locules, pericarp thickness, TSS, fruit pH, seeds fruit-1 and 1000 seed weight. A wide range of variation was observed among the characters studied which have a great interest for tomato breeders. Heritability for (broad sense) ranged from 51.8 to 99.8 % in 2002 and from 86.0 to 99.9 % in 2003. Single fruit weight gave the highest heritability during 2002, however, it was at maximum for days to first harvest during 2003. Fruit weight plant-1showed high and positive genotypic and phenotypic correlation with number of picking and with number of fruits plant-1, thus indicating that these traits were the most important yield components. On the basis of performance and keeping in view the selection criteria observed in the present study, 14 genotypes were identified for future testing under wide range of environments.

National Agricultural Research Center, Islamabad, Pakistan.