The nature of the inheritance of plant height at 60 days, number of flowers per cluster, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight per plant, and number of seeds per fruit was studied from a 10-parent diallel cross of Lycopersicum esculentum Mill. Due to their high general combining ability effects, Pusharubi, Bari-4, and Dynasagor parents were suggested for future hybridisation programmes. | Turk J Bot 31 (2007) 559-563 © TÜB‹TAK Research Note Combining Ability Analysis of Yield and Yield Components in Tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum Mill.) 1 2, 1 1 Mohammad Mofidul HANNAN , Manosh Kumar BISWAS *, Mohammad Bulbul AHMED , Monzur HOSSAIN , 1 Rafiul ISLAM 1 Department of Botany, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi-6205 BANGLADESH 2 Department of Pomology, College of Horticulture and Forestry, Huazhong Agricultural University, CHINA Received: Accepted: Abstract: The nature of the inheritance of plant height at 60 days, number of flowers per cluster, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight per plant, and number of seeds per fruit was studied from a 10-parent diallel cross of Lycopersicum esculentum Mill. Due to their high general combining ability effects, Pusharubi, Bari-4, and Dynasagor parents were suggested for future hybridisation programmes. For yield, the crosses Deshy × Ratan, Deshy × Epoch, Dynasagor × Ratan, Bari-4 × Pusharubi, and Dynamo × Namdhari had good specific combining ability effects and they were recommended because they produce stable performing rare transgressive segregants. A population improvement approach in the form of diallel selective mating or mass selection with concurrent random mating could be used for the exploitation of additive and non-additive gene actions for these characters. Key Words: General combining ability, specific combining ability, F1 seeds, yield components, tomato, Lycopersicum sp. Introduction Identification and selection of flexible parental lines are required to be used in any hybridisation programme to produce genetically modified and potentially rewarding germplasm by assembling fixable gene effects more or less in a homozygous line. Information pertaining to different types of gene action, relative magnitude of genetic variance, and combining ability estimates are important and vital parameters to mould the genetic makeup of tomato crop. This important information could
