Heritability of Morpho-Agronomic Traits in Cocona (Solanum sessiliflorum Dunal) and Efficiency of Early Visual Selection for Fruit Yield

Cocona (Solanum sessiliflorum Dunal) is an underutilized Amazonian fruit species with significant food, nutritional, and economic potential, but its genetic improvement remains limited. This study aimed to estimate the heritability of 13 morpho-agronomic traits in two F2 populations, assess the efficiency of early visual selection, and identify traits associated with fruit yield. Approximately 250 plants from each population were grown in the Central Amazon. One week before the first harvest, plants were visually screened for yield potential, and the selected individuals were further evaluated for fruit traits. Broad-sense heritability (h2) was significant for most traits; the highest values were for number of flowers per plant (h2 = 0.88), petiole length (h2 = 0.87), collar diameter (h2 = 0.71), canopy diameter (h2 = 0.58), and fruit length (h2 = 0.55). Early visual selection achieved ~65% efficiency. Fruit yield was correlated strongly and positively with the number of fruits per plant. These results indicate that phenotypic selection is effective for improving key plant and fruit traits in cocona. Early visual selection can be used to identify high-yielding individuals and the number of fruits per plant can be used as a complementary criterion to enhance selection accuracy for fruit yield.