GENETIC DIVERSITY ANALYSIS IN ELITE LINES OF TOMATO (Solanum lycopersicum L.) FOR GROWTH, YIELD AND QUALITY PARAMETERS

To increase productivity in tomato, it is necessary to develop superior varieties/hybrids. This is, in part, dependent on variability in the genetic material which affects agromorphological and biochemical characters in crop breeding. A study was conducted with 51 tomato genotypes and the standard checks/reference cultivars Punjab Upma, Punjab Chuhhara and Punjab Ratta to determine character association, path coefficient analysis and genetic diversity to select genotypes and traits for breeding. There were differences among genotypes for all characters indicating a high degree of variability in the material. Overall, highly significant, positive, correlation coefficients, as well as high direct effects of fruit weight and marketable yield on total fruit yield, indicated these traits are reliable components for selecting high fruit yielding tomato genotypes. The D2 statistics confirmed the highest inter-cluster distance between clusters VI and VIII (27638.44). Maximum similarity was observed in clusters IV and VI (191.02). This indicated existence of the possibility to improve genotypes through hybridization from any pair of clusters and subsequent selection can be made from segregant generations.