HETEROSIS AND RECIPROCAL EFFECTS ON AGRONOMIC TRAITS AND METABOLITES IN TOMATO FRUITS

PEREIRA DA COSTA, J; FORTUNY, A; ZANOR, MI; BUENO, R; RODRIGUEZ, G

Congreso; SOL Meeting 2020; 2020

Sol Genomics Network

The hybrids in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) are mostly cultivated due to disease resistance, productivity and fruit quality. The existence of heterosis has been studied in tomato for many years. However, the influence of the crossing direction over the hybrid?s phenotype., i.e. reciprocal effect, is still poorly understood. This work aimed to detect heterosis and reciprocal effects in agronomic traits and metabolites. The plant material included 20 hybrids obtained following a full diallelic mating design between two American heirlooms: Purple Pear and Green Zebra, and three RILs obtained from the Tomato Breeding Program at Facultad de Cs. Agrarias, UNR: Querubín, Gema and ToUNR17. We measured 12 agronomic traits and 28 metabolites. A PCA analysis including the means of all traits and genotypes, showed that the hybrid?s performance was broader distributed compared to the parental genotypes, indicating the phenotypic variability generated by the crosses. Heterosis and reciprocal effect could be inferred for each cross and trait using ANOVA. Heterosis was considered when the hybrid had a better performance than the best parent (P