Development of high yielding and blight resistant hybrids of tomato

Blight diseases are one of the serious causes of low tomato productively in pakistan. two susceptible but high yielding lines riogrande and roma were crossed with lb2,lb3,lb4 and lb7 following line x tester mating design to generate 8 fi hybrids. all genotypes were evaluated to find high yielding and disease resistant combiners and their hybrids against check hybrid t-1359. whole plant assay elucidated lb2,roma x lb3 and roma x lb4 tolerant to late blight. the same assay also expounded lb3,lb4,lb2,lb7 and riogrande x lb2 tolerant to early blight. non-additive gene action was observed to control each blight type,fruit length,fruit weight and 1000-seed weight except number of fruits per plant and fruit diameter. female x male interaction affixed highest place to line x tester interaction by 48% for late blight and 84% for early blight. riogrande,lb2 and lb7 were good general combiner for tolerance to early blight while roma and lb3 for late blight. the perusal of high mean performance,specific combining ability effects and commercial heterosis simultaneously led to the isolation of two promising hybrids roma x lb3,roma x lb4 for late blight and riogrande x lb2 for early blight. these three hybrids have been submitted in competitive multi-location field trails to adjudge their yield performance and blight response before commercialization. © 2015 university of agriculture. all rights reserved.