Combining Ability Studies for Maturity, Growth, Yield and Quality Traits in Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

A study was conducted at Vegetable Research Farm, Vegetable Science Division, SKUAST- Kashmir, Shalimar, India to determine the general and specific combining abilities for maturity, growth, yield and quality traits in tomato by crossing 12 parents in a diallel Method II and Model I of Griffing mating design during Kharif season 2020. The F1 progenies of the sixty-six crosses (excluding reciprocals) were evaluated along with the twelve parents in Randomized Block Design during Kharif season 2021 at three locations. The observations were recorded on eighteen diverse traits. The analysis of variance for general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) revealed significant mean squares due to GCA and SCA for all the traits under consideration. The mean squares due to GCA × environments and SCA × environments were found significant for most of the characters. None of the parents possessed significant and desirable GCA for all the traits. Different parents were found to reveal desirable general combining ability for different traits. Similarly, none of the crosses possessed significant and desirable specific combining ability for all the traits. However, different crosses were found to reveal desirable SCA for different traits.