Heterosis analysis in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) for Lycopene, TSS, titrable acidity and Ascorbic acid

Heterosis were estimated using ten lines and three testers and their thirty F1 combinations, crossed in line × tester fashion which were evaluated for four seasons for important quality traits viz., lycopene, ascorbic acid, titrable acidity (TA), total soluble solids (TSS) and pericarp thickness. Some of the parents having good potentiality for generating superior F1 combinations for most of the quality characters under study have been identified. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated significantly higher amount of differences among genotypes for all the five characters studied. In this study, among crosses, the cross NDTVR60 × Floradade exhibited positive desirable heterosis over best parent for lycopene (60.22%) and Selection7 × Floradade (25.12%) for ascorbic acid. The cross NDTVR60 × Floradade showed the highest positive heterosis over best parent for titrable acidity (31.37%) whereas cross CO3 × Azad T5 (30.65%) exhibited the significantly highest positive heterosis over best parent for TSS and cross combination DT2 × Azad T5 (56.82%) exhibited positive heterobeltiosis for pericarp thickness.