HERITABLE AND NON HERITABLE COMPONENTS OF PHENOTYPIC CORRELATION COEFFICIENT AND PATH ANALYSIS IN TOMATO (SOLANUM LYCOPERSICUM L.).

Abstract

An investigation was carried out to study character associations among 16 yield traits including yield on 30 genotype of tomato (15 exotic and 15 indigenous). Genotypic coefficient of variation played a major role for the expression of the traits and ranged from 9.35 (days to 50% flowering) to 42.02 (fruit yield per plant). Heritability in broad sense ranged from 66.00 (primary branches) to 90.10 (fruit per plant). High genetic advance was observed for Fruit yield per plant (81.95) coupled with high heritability (89.60). The contributions through heritable and non heritable components to the magnitude phenotypic correlation coefficient were examined and it was found that in most of the cases heritable components contributed maximum towards the magnitude of phenotypic correlation coefficient however, in few cases environment factors seem to play a major role to bring down the magnitude of phenotypic correlation coefficient compared to its genotypic contributions. Average fruit weight (0.74), fruits per plant (0.55), equatorial diameter (0.43) fruits per cluster (0.42), locule number (0.39) and cluster per plant (0.36), polar diameter (0.36) and flowers per cluster (0.18) were positively associated with fruit yield at phenotypic level, indicating improvement in these traits will increase the fruit yield. Path-coefficient analysis revealed that Average fruit weight (0.61) followed by fruits per plant (0.36), polar diameter (0.18), cluster per plant (0.15)and fruits per cluster (0.13) had highest positive direct effect on fruit yield .Locule number (0.376) , equatorial number(0.367) and polar diameter (0.243) had highest positive indirect effect through average fruit weight on fruit yield.