Heterosis breeding for fruit yield, solasodine, total phenol and anthocyanin contents in brinjal (Solanum melongena L.)

The present investigation was undertaken to study the heterosis for fruit yield and quality traits using eight diverse homozygous brinjal parental lines crossed in diallel mating design, excluding reciprocals, to develop twenty-eight hybrids and evaluated in the post-rainy season of 2015. the cross, cHFB-6 x Solanum gilo was observed as earliest with better parent heterosis-18.86 for days to flowering. Heterosis over better parent for fruit yield ranged from 16.27 (BR-112 x cHFB-7) to 108.88 (cHFB-7 x Solanum gilo) percent where as over standard variety, Pant Rituraj, it ranged from 15.24 (nDB-3 x cHFB-6) to 97.92 (Pant Rituraj x cHFB-6) percent. Heterosis over better and standard variety was also observed for solasodine content, total phenol content and anthocyanin content. on the basis of heterotic performance among all the crosses across thirteen traits, the crosses, viz., Pant Rituraj x cHFB-6, Swarna Pratibha x cHFB-6 and Pant Rituraj x cHFB-7 were found most promising for fruit yield and quality traits. the results suggested that hybrid breeding approach could be a prospective breeding method for improvement of yield along with biochemical quality traits in brinjal.