Genetics of heat stress tolerance traits in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

Abstract

High temperature during crop growth severely restricts the yield and quality of tomato. Pollen viability, pollen germination, corolla tip burning, stigma exertion, membrane thermo-stability and fruit set are affected severely under high temperature and in turn affect total yield. An improvement in these traits may result in increased tolerance towards high temperature. This necessitates knowledge of gene action governing these traits under target environment. Hence, present investigation was carried out to unravel the gene action governing these traits using six generations of ten interacting crosses of tomato under high temperature regime. Pooled data over two years were used for statistical analysis. The results revealed complementary gene action for corolla tip burning in all the crosses. In contrast, stigma exertion was controlled by duplicate gene action in all the cross-combinations. For rest of the traits duplicate gene action was noted in majority of the crosses. Significant and high values of epistatic variances are suggestive of efficacy of selection between families and lines following hybridization. © 2017, SPR, All Rights Reserved.