ASSESSMENT OF CORRELATION AND PATH COEFFICIENT ANALYSIS FOR YIELD AND YIELD CONTRIBUTING TRAITS AMONG TOMATO (SOLANUM LYCOPERSICUM L.) GERMPLASM

A field experiment was carried out using thirty tomato germplasm at Vegetable Research Farm, Department of Horticulture, SHIATS, Allahabad during 2012-2013. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The study determined the association between fruit yield and other yield components. It also determined path coefficients between fruit yield and other traits. There are highly significant differences among the germplasm for all the characters studied as per the analysis of variance. Correlation analysis revealed that, fruit yield per plant (g) exhibited significant and positive correlation with number of fruits per plant (0.3119 and 0.3184), fruit set per cent (0.2434 and 0.2499), fruit weight (g) (0.6766 and 0.6731) and polar diameter of fruit (mm) (0.4687 and 0.4635) at genotypic and phenotypic level, respectively. Genotypic correlation values were higher in magnitude than the corresponding phenotypic values, thus establishing a strong genetic relationship among the traits. At genotypic and phenotypic path coefficient analysis revealed that fruit weight (g) (1.1298 and 1.1116) had greatest positive direct effect on fruit yield per plant (g). In present investigation, fruit weight (g) showed high positive and direct effect had significant positive correlation with fruit yield per plant (g). Therefore, the fruits with higher weight should be considered in selection criteria for increasing fruit yield per plant. The present study suggested that more emphasis should be given to selecting germplasm with high fruit weight.