Effectiveness of Drought Tolerance Indices to Identify Tolerant Genotypes with High Yielding Potential in Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

Abstract

The screening of thirty-two tomato genotypes for drought stress tolerance was done under pot culture conditions in polyhouse where drought stress was imposed at 15 days after transplanting based on two treatments viz., 100 per cent field capacity and 50 per cent field capacity by adopting factorial completely randomized block design with three replications. The morphological traits such as plant height, root fresh and dry weight, number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plant and the physiological traits such as chlorophyll stability index and relative water content decreased with increased water stress while, number of flowers drop and proline content increased under water deficit conditions. Results revealed that accessions IIVR-L, LE-114, LE-118, LE-57 and LE-27 showed maximum plant height, root fresh weight and root dry weight, number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plant, chlorophyll stability index, relative water content and proline content but a minimum number of flower drop indicating that, these genotypes are tolerant to drought and can be used for selection and as a source of drought responsive genes in future crop improvement programme of tomato. Introduction