SELECTION OF HIGH YIELDING STABLE GENOTYPES OF CHERRY TOMATO (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme) THROUGH MULTILOCATION TRIALS

Abstract

An investigation was carried out with ten exotic and two released cherry tomato genotypes (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme) to identify high yielding stable genotypes through multilocation trials to release suitable variety for northern region of the country. The study was conducted at three locations these were the field of the Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur, Bangladesh: Taraganj, Rangpur and Debiganj, Panchagarh during the period from November 2022 to May 2023 in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. Twelve traits were studied: days to first flowering (FF), Days to first fruiting (FFR), chlorophyll content (CC), number of clusters per plant (CPP), number of fruits per plant (FC), fruit weight (FW), fruit diameter (FD), fruit length (FL), plant height (PH), number of fruits per plant (FPP), yield per plant (YPP) and yield per plot (YPPlot). The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the studied characters in three locations. The superior mean performances were revealed in three locations for the genotype L13 for the characters FC, FPP, YPP and YPPlot. The phenotypic coefficient of variation was higher than the genotypic coefficients of variation indicating environmental influence on the traits. High heritability (greater than 70%) coupled with high genetic advance as percent of mean (greater than 20%) was observed for all characteristics in three locations except for CC. The comparison of twelve cherry tomato genotypes across the environments revealed that CPP, FL, FPP, PH, YPP and YPPlot contained higher values in Panchagarh than Dinajpur and Rangpur. The result of partial correlation analysis in three locations among measured traits showed that YPP and YPPlot had a significantly positive correlations with CPP (0.66, 0.55, 0.59 and 0.71 for Dinapur, Rangpur, Panchagarh and combined, respectively), FPP (0.75, 0.56, 0.64 and 0.75 for Dinapur, Rangpur, Panchagarh and combined, respectively). A significant genotypic effect was observed for all traits in the single environment analysis. A genotype–environment interaction (GEI) was observed in the mixed-effect model, except for fruit length. Among phenological traits, it was found that CPP, FC, FW, FPP, YPP and YPPlot were strongly supporting selection gain in Dinajpur, Rangpur and Panchagarh, respectively. Based on multi-trait genotype-ideotype distance index (MGIDI), genotypes L13 and L14 in Dinajpur and Rangpur; L13 and L09 in Panchagarh were found to be the most promising genotypes. According to best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) and GGE biplot analysis the high-yielding and stable cherry tomato genotype was L13 followed by L14 and L09, respectively. Based on GGE biplot analysis, the high-yielding and stable environment was Dinajpur. In biochemical analysis, genotype L04 had the highest sugar (0.20 mg/g) and phenol (25.82 mg/g) content; genotype L13 had highest lycopene content that was 72.36 µg/g whereas highest carotenoid, flavonoid and DPPH content found in L06 (33.49 µg/g), L09 (7.48 mg/g) and L14 (4.41 mg), respectively. In the molecular study, seven simple sequence repeat (SSRs) markers were used for observing variations among twelve cherry tomato genotypes. Where two populations were found i. e. Population I (BU-2, BU-5, L02 and L04) and Population II (L05, L06, L09, L13, L14, TM-23, CTOM-1220 and CTOM-1221). Phenotypically stable and promising genotypes L13, L14 and L09 were genotypically different from the released variety BU-2 and BU-5. Therefore, the stable nutrient rich and genotypically distinguished genotypes L13, L14 and L09 could be registered as a cherry tomato variety in Bangladesh.