Studies on Genetic Diversity and Interdependence of Growth and Quality Traits in Cherry Tomato [Solanum lycopersicum (L.) var cerasiforme Mill.]

Background: Cherry tomato [Solanum lycopersicum (L.) var. cerasiforme Mill.] belonging to Solanaceae family, having chromosome number 2n=2x=24 is a table purpose tomato with small fruits of bright red colour bearing resemblance to a cherry. With ever increasing demand of cherry tomato in both fresh market and processing industries there is a need to make the crop both agronomically and economically more desirable. Therefore, cherry tomatoes present great future in breeding programmes for bringing about the required improvements and hence it is necessary to evaluate the germplasm and select genotypes which are high yielding and disease resistant. Methods: Genetic diversity for growth and quality traits in twenty four genotypes of cherry tomato was studied under mid hills of Kullu valley (32.2oN latitude 77oE longitude), Himachal Pradesh during kharif season of 2020. Observations with respect to morphological and physicochemical characters were recorded on five randomly selected plants from each plot in each replication and their means were worked out for statistical analysis. Result: The genetic variability in general indicated that phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) was higher than genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) for all the characters studied; however, the difference was very narrow. For number of branches per plant, days to per cent flowering, number of cluster per plant number of seeds per plant, total soluble solids (TSS) and titratable acidity the difference was very high, indicating the role of environment in expression of these characters. The heritability and genetic gain were high for number of fruits per cluster and fruit yield per plant. High heritability along with moderate genetic gain was observed for total number of fruits per plant and average fruit weight. Fruit yield per plant had significant and positive correlation with total number of fruits per plant, number of fruit clusters, average weight, pericarp thickness and titratable acidity. Positive direct effect on fruit yield per plant was highest from total number of fruits per plant followed by pericarp thickness, days to 50 per cent flowering, plant height, TSS, number of branches, titratable acidity, average fruit weight, fruit shape index and number of seeds. Based on analysis of genetic divergence through Mahalanobis D2 statistics, the genotypes were divided into four different clusters and the cluster III and IV had the genotypes with the requisite traits for future improvement of yield.