Evaluation of advance tomato lines possessing Ty, Ph and Mi genes for horticultural traits

Among biotic diseases suffered by tomato, leaf curl virus, late blight and root knot nematode are major ones causing up to cent percent losses of yield and quality. Consequently, six genes (Ty-1, Ty-2, Ty-3, Ph-2, Ph-3 and Mi-1.2) were pyramided from different parental lines through hybridization to achieve resistance against these diseases. In this study, 125 lines of tomato were evaluated through phenotypic and molecular screening to identify multiple disease resistant lines. A popular cultivar Punjab Chhuhara was used as a common susceptible check for these diseases and resistant checks viz., PVB-4, LBR-10 and NR-14 were also used. Among 125 lines screened, three lines, namely TW-4-5-7, TW-10-4E-8 and TW-12-4-10 were found to be promising for resistance to multiple diseases with an average respective yield of 3.9, 2.7 and 3.0 kg plant⁻¹. These multiple disease resistant lines could be used in tomato breeding and evaluated at different locations for exploitation in commercial level.