Effects of crossbreeding on fruits characteristics of two species of tomatoes (Solanum esculentum L. and Solanum pimpinellifolium L.)

Solanum esculentum L. and Solanum pimpinellifolium L. (species of tomato) were crossbred to raise F1 so as to assess the effect of crossbreeding as a tool for tomato improvement as shown in yield. This was done by emasculating S. esculentum using it as female parent and transferring ripe pollen grains from S. pimpinellifolium the male parent using artificial means. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed in data analysis. Result showed that the parental plants and F1 hybrid differed significantly in fresh fruit weight, number of seeds per fruit, fruit colour, fruit width and fresh fruit length. F1 hybrid had the highest number of seeds per fruit when compared to the parental plants. S. esculentum recorded the highest fresh fruit weight, fruit width and fresh fruit length when compared to S. pimpinellifolium and F1 hybrid, though the F1 hybrid was statistically at par with S. esculentum in fresh fruit length. S. pimpinellifolium had the least fresh fruit weight, fruit width, number of seeds per fruit and fresh fruit length (1.80± 0.01, 8.03 ±1.0, 110.56 ± 0.01 and 4.00 ± 0.03, respectively). S. pimpinellifolium had a very dark red coloured fruits, followed by the F1 hybrid with dark red coloured fruits. S. esculentum had a light red coloured fruits based on the colour guide and the scale point used. The obtained data indicated that when two tomato plants of different but closely related varieties are crossbred, a new variety that combines the characters of the parental plants and enhanced genetic attributes is produced. F1 hybrid had the highest number of seeds per fruit and though had fruits smaller in size than S. esculentum but performed better than S. pimpinellifolium indicating that crossbreeding could be a tool for tomato improvement