Assessment Genetic Variability among Three Parents and Six Progenies of Tomato using Multivariate Analysis

Six tomato hybrids developed through diallel mating design and the three parents were obtained from the plant breeding section of Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba-Akoko and used to assess the genetic variability among them. The breeding materials were raised in the nursery for three weeks before transplanting. The hybrids and parents were laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) replicated three times Seedlings were transplanted at a spacing of 60 x 30 cm between and within row. Variability estimates were highly significant (p< 5%) in all the 10 measured quantitative traits. The average fruit mean yield of 21.42 g was recorded for all the materials evaluated. Phenotypic variances were higher in magnitude than its corresponding genotypic variances apart from pericarp thickness which had the same value of 0.002 and 100% heritability. Factor scores and communality of the 10 traits of tomato obtained from the factor analysis showed that the first factor were positively loaded with eigen vectors for number of branches (0.818), number of fruits per cluster (0.803), plant height (0.776), fruit yield (0.748) and number of clusters per plant (0.731). The second factor was positively loaded with pericarp thickness (0.723) and number of clusters per plant (0.460). Factor three was only positively loaded with fruit weight (0.881). The communality ranged from 0.618 for fruit yield to 0.930 for fruit weight. Conclusively, traits such as fruit yield, pericarp thickness, fruit weight, number of locules per fruit, days to flowering and days to first fruit set are important traits that should be considered in further breeding programme in tomato.