Improvement of some Economic Traits for Eggplant (cv. White Balady) to Produce Selected Pure Lines

Abstract

Selection and breeding of eggplant has resulted in development of large number of commercial varieties. Selection from the local varieties is the most practical way for this genetic improvement. Hence, balady variety of eggplant has a wide range of genetic variability in fruit characters . Therefore, this study aimed to develop promising local lines of eggplant for hybrids development or for direct integration. This study was carried out during five successive summer seasons of 2010 to 2014 at El-Barmoon Farm, Mansoura Horticultural Research Station, Dekahlia Governorate, Egypt. Seeds of the local Balady of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.), S0 populations were grown and the distinct plants were determined according to growth vigor, flower’s color and selfed Between and within the families selection was accomplished until reaching of S4 generation. Phenotypic and genetic parameters were estimated after four cycles of selection in ten lines in addition to check variety. The mean squares of the selected lines were highly significant for all studied traits. The line LW.15-1 showed good performance average fruit weight and total yield per plant comparing with the other lines and original population with the meam of 204.1 and 2.573 , respectively . While the line LW.26-1 was a good donor for both plant high, number of branches per plant and number of fruits per plant with the meam of 89.15 cms, 8.711 and 13.25 , respectively but with relative small fruit size comparing with the other lines. The results showed high values for genotypic coefficient of variation between lines (G.C.V% between lines) compared with the coefficient of variationwithin lines (G.C.V% within lines) and moderate to high heritability in broad- sense (H2Bs) for all studied traits. Through the early segregating generations, eggplant could be improved through applying selection based on phenotypic expression of the studied traits that would be effective in isolation and identification of promising lines in eggplant. In current study, the lines LW.15-1, LW.5-2 and LW.26-1 are highly recommended for direct integration or as parental lines for F1 eggplant improvement.