GENETIC VARIABILITY, CORRELATION AND PATH CO-EFFICIENT ANALYSIS OF YIELD AND YIELD CONTRIBUTING CHARACTERS OF TOMATO (Solanum lycopersicum L.) GENOTYPES

Abstract

Twenty-five genotypes of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) were evaluated in a Complete Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications at the net house of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka to study the variability, correlation and path co-efficient analysis from October, 2021 to March, 2022 in Rabi season. The genotypes were found significantly variable for all the characters studied. Comparatively phenotypic variance was higher than the genotypic variance for all the characters. The high genotypic co-efficient of variation and phenotypic coefficient of variation values were observed for yield per plant (kg). Maximum difference between

phenotypic and genotypic co-efficient of variation were 30.31 and 13.82. Days to first flowering,

days to first fruiting, no. of primary and secondary branches per plant, total number of fruits per

cluster,

skin diameter of fruit (mm), fruit pH, individual fruit wt. (g) and yield per plant (kg) showed high heritability along with genetic advance in percentage of mean, indicating high variability among these traits. The significant positive correlation with yield per plant (kg) was found in number of fruits per cluster, individual fruit weight (g). Both genotypic and phenotypic variance level indicated the importance of these traits in selection for increasing yield and were identified as yield attributing characters. Thus, selection can be relied upon these characters for the genetic improvement of yield for tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.). According to path coefficient analysis, number of primary branches per plant had the lowest positive direct effect and

individual fruit weight (g) had the highest positive direct effect on yield. Days to first flowering,

plant height

(cm), number of secondary branches per plant, total number of fruits per cluster, individual fruit wt. (g) all had positive direct impact on yield per plant (kg), suggesting that direct selection based on these traits may be useful in the development of high yielding tomato genotypes. Considering genotypic variability and morphological characteristics of experimental tomato genotypes G5, G6, G7, G8, G13, G16, G18, G20 and G21 might be suggested as parents for future breeding program.