Combining Ability and Gene Action for Growth, Yield and Quality Traits in Cherry Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L. var. cerasiforme Mill)

A study was conducted on a 8 × 8, diallel mating design to determine combining ability and nature of gene action for ten charactersin cherry tomato. Significant differences among genotypes were obtained for all the traits. Among the eight parental lines, L 00427, L 00398, L 01696 and L 04780 were the best combiner for plant height, number of fruits per cluster, number fruitsper plant, fruit yield per plant and other quality parameters (lycopene content, ascorbic acid, total soluble solids and reducing sugar) and thus could be used in cherry tomato hybridization programme. Crosses showing high specific combining ability (SCA) for plant height L 04780 x L 03686, for number of fruits per cluster, number of fruits, per plant andtotal soluble solids (L 00427 x Arka Vikas) and the hybrids L 00427 x L 03686 L 01696 x L 03686 for ascorbic acid and lycopene content respectively. The dominance effects (H₁ and H₂) were higher than the additive effect (D), which showed preponderance of non-additive gene action plays a greater role in the inheritance for all the characters in this study.