Heterosis Breeding in Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.): Gains and Provocations

Abstract

Heterosis (or hybrid vigor) results in a hybrid’s phenotypic superiority over its founder parents for quantitative and qualitative traits. Hybrid vigor is defined by mechanisms such as dominant complementation, over-dominance, and epistasis. Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is an essential vegetable crop and a good source of dietary minerals, vitamins, and anthocyanins, with a high oxygen radical absorbance capacity and low caloric value. Given the economic and nutritional significance of eggplants, breeding efforts focus on developing high-yielding varieties—mostly F1 hybrids—with important traits. Studies indicate the successful exploitation of heterosis in the eggplant for a considerable improvement with respect to quantitative traits. In this direction, estimating heterosis for yield-related traits could well be useful for examining the most beneficial hybrid mix with the exploitation of top-quality hybrid. This review examines the current perception of the breeding and molecular aspects of heterosis in eggplants and cites several studies describing the mechanisms. Rendering and combining recent genomics, epigenetic, proteomic, and metabolomics studies present new prospects towards the understanding of the regulatory events of heterosis involved in the evolution and the domestication of the eggplant ideotype.

Heterotic Effect of Different Cytoplasmic Combinations in Sunflower Hybrids Cultivated Under Diverse Irrigation Regimes

“…Therefore, they are the storehouse of valuable genes for traits like drought resistance, and employing the useful genes from wild relatives of the crop has resulted in the development of drought-tolerant genotypes in several crops like maize and eggplant [25][26][27][28]. Similarly, the wild relatives of sunflower were used in the past [29][30][31].…”

Association of Heterotic Groups with Morphological Relationships and General Combining Ability in Eggplant

“…Eggplant has a formidable potential for exploitation of heterosis for yield and quality traits, and for resistance to biotic stresses [9,24]. In addition, there is evidence that selecting parents that are genetically distant may be useful for obtaining heterotic hybrids in terms of yield [25][26][27].…”

“…Utilization of heterosis is important for developing superior hybrid varieties able to cope with the increasing demands of the global market in eggplant. Thus, heterosis can provide important advantages for breeding for yield, better growth and development, disease and pest resistance [9]. Assessment of the combining ability of parents and identification of their heterotic patterns can facilitate the selection of parents to be used for developing superior hybrids [10].…”

Visiting Bitter Gourd (<em>Momordica charantia</em>) from a Breeding Perspective: A Review

“…This hypothesis suggests that heterozygosity at individual loci as leading to heterosis. Heterosis is mainly utilizing dominance variation (Kumar et al, 2020). The exploitation of heterosis is more Table 2.…”