CROP PERFORMANCES AND GENETIC VARIABILITY ANALYSIS OF SEVEN TOMATO GENOTYPES CONDUCTED UNDER AGRO ECOLOGICAL FARMING MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Tomato crop occupies a predominant place after that of potatoes in market garden crops in Algeria. The main purposes of this study were to evaluate crop performances, variability of some morphologic and phenologic traits, and correlations with the yield of seven (07) genotypes of tomato. The trials were carried out on Random Complete Blocs Design (RCBD) with three replications at the local unheated greenhouse during the period from November to June 2018. The most important morphological markers used were stem growth rate, inflorescence (Number of flowers, length of peduncle) and fruit characters (length and circumstance), phenologic stages, and average yield. The effect of the genetic material on the observed variability was significant for all the traits considered. Additionally, we noticed positive values of correlation coefficients of yield with stem length between every two clusters and the number of leave under cluster, average fruit weight, and earliness to flowering. Additionally, earliness to flowering shows very high and stable correlations (above 0.8) with yield during the crop cycle. The principal component analysis showed that the first two components generated 62.17 % of variability, while the first four components accumulated more than 93 % (93.51 %) of the total diversity. Moreover, the dendrogram analysis classified the genotypes within 03 groups.