Studies On Stigma Receptivity And Fruit Load For Hybrid Seed Production In Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) Under Protected Environment

Abstract

An experiment was conducted in factorial randomized block design with three replications during spring- summer season 2013 at Experimental Farm, Department of Vegetable Science and Floriculture, CSK Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishvavidyalaya, Palampur to standardize the best time of stigma receptivity and optimum fruit load in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) The data indicated that for hybrid seed production of tomato under polyhouse conditions, the pollination carried out between 9.00 to 10.00 am and retaining fruit load of 20 fruits per plant, exhibited higher fruit set (65.1%), average fruit weight (64.2g), 1000-seed weight (4.20g), average seed weight per fruit (0.17g), fruit yield per plant (1496.7g), seed yield per plant (4.54g) and seed quality parameters such as germination (91.7%) and seedling vigour index (1943) as compared to the pollinations done before and after this time and retaining fruit load of 25 or 30 fruits per plant.