Evaluation of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) Hybrids during Rainy Season in Coastal Plain of Odisha, India

Abstract

Tomato grown during the main season (winter) causes a glut of produce in the market and its sale price is also very low. But the crop grown in rainy season has a better demand and is much remunerative for the farmer. Therefore, the present experiment was undertaken to develop and identify tomato hybrids well adapted to the rainy season. The experiment was conducted at the All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Vegetable Crops, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar. Forty five F 1 hybrids were developed by crossing 10 divergent parental lines in half diallel fashion during 2016-17 (winter). The 45 F 1 hybrids along with the 10 parents were evaluated in Randomised Block Design with three replications during the rainy season of 2017. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the hybrids for all the characters. The parent BT 317 proved to be the best with respect to characters like fruit yield per plant, average fruit weight, plant height, fruits per plant, fruit girth, fruit pericarp thickness, no. of clusters per plant and no. of locules per fruit. The hybrids BT 217 x BT 215-3-3-1 and TOBW-3 x BT 215-3-3-1 proved to be best with regard to fruit yield/plant (943.64 g and 651.24 g respectively), average fruit weight (37.00 g and 35.20 g in order), fruit length (5.96 cm and 6.10 cm), fruit girth (5.86 cm and 5.70cm), fruits per plant (27.18). BT 106 x BT317 was promising for earliness i.e. days to first flowering (64.00 days). The hybrid BT 305-2-4-2 x BT 215-3-3-1 was the best for fruit pericarp thickness (0.64 cm). In respect of plant height, the hybrid BT317x BT 429-1-1was found to be promising (110.40 cm). Fruit length of BT 215-3-3-1 was the maximum.