Fruit productivity of eggplant hybrids in relation to vegetative growth.

Abstract

The fruit productivity of the eggplant hybrids was analysed in relation to their vegetative growth. Six commercial varieties which differcd in maturity, fruit and other charactcrs (Table 1) were diallelcrossed without reciprocals. An F2 population was examined in the combination of thc early variety "Minden" with the late variety "Kurumenagn". All the F1 hybrids except one showed heterosis for fruit yield(Table 2). The average fruit weight, one component of fruit yield, was larger in the F1 mean than in the parent mean (Table 3), although fruits were hanvested in nearly same size. This may be attributed to the fruit growth rate of F1 hybrids surpcrior to that of parents during the succesive harvest of two or three days interval. The number of fruits, the other component of fruit yield, also gencrally showed heterosis (Table 4). For the purpose of examining the relation of fruit yield to vegetative growth, the fruit yield of each variety and F1 was plotted against thc weight of vegetative part shown in Table 5. It was ascertained from Fig.1 that thc varieties and thc F1 hybrids fall into two fairly distinct groups ; one of those includes all six members of the constant parent array of "Minden", so that it may be called"Mindengroup"and the other is "general group" of all other varieties and F1 hybrids.