Estimation of Variance Components, Heritability and Genetic Advance of Yield and Yield Related Traits in Tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum L)

Abstract

Investigation and better understanding on the variability existing in a population base of crop is pivotal to crop improvement and proper understanding by plant breeder. The objectives of the study were to estimate the magnitude of genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance for yield and yield contributing characters of the twenty four tomato genotypes cultivated. Ethyl methyl sulphonate (EMS) mutagen was used at concentrations rate of 40 mM, 60 mM and 80 mM, while 0.00 mM was used for control has pre-treatment of the seeds before planting. The experiment was arranged in a Complete Randomised Design (CRD) with ten replicates. Fourteen quantitative traits were observed during different stages of development. Furthermore, data collected for each character was subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test the variations among genotypes. From the results, Phenotypic Coefficient of Variation (PCV) was relatively greater than Genotypic Coefficient of Variation (GCV) for all traits considered. Genetic variance (δ²g) ranged from 0.18 for FPT to 8077114.00 for yield per plant in kg/ha while phenotypic variance (δ²P) ranged from 0.30 for FPT to 8601084.00 in kg/ha. The highest heritability was observed for number of branches per plant (BPP) (95.32%), while DMF had the lowest with 60.05 %. The highest GAM of kg/ha was 158.67 %, and the lowest GAM was number of flowers per truss at 75days (FPT) gave 11.59%. In conclusion, high heritability indicated that the characters were less influenced by the environment and therefore, selection based on phenotypic performance is recommended to be dependable and effective.