Hybrid breeding in tomato

Hybrid technology has become one of the main factors contributing to the significant global rise in agricultural output over the last few decades. In hybrid breeding an efficient pollination control system is required to avoid the unwanted self-pollination or sib-pollination of the female parental line. With the ease of use of cost effective mechanisms to produce large scale hybrids utilizing selected parental lines is another important factor which ultimately determines the commercial viability of the hybrid varieties. In tomato although crosses can be developed through manual emasculation followed by manual pollination of emasculated flowers or pistillate flowers commercial hybrid seed production is economically feasible in which a large number of F₁ seeds are obtained from one manually pollinated crossed fruits. With the invent of male sterility mechanisms and their proposed utilization in hybrid seed production several mechanisms and methods have been evolved for the development of experimental and commercial hybrids.