Agromorphological characterization of some tomato genetic resources (Solanum lycopersicum L.) and determination of fruit quality characteristics

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.), a vegetable crop of the Solanaceae family is produced in large quantities throughout the world. Although Türkiye is not the center of origin of tomato, it is the center of diversity. In the first year of this three-year study, agromorphological characterization was carried out in terms of 30 agromorphologic traits on 170 tomato accessions, conserved in Aegean Agricultural Research Institute National Seed Gene Bank, collected from 60 different provinces in 7 geographic region of Türkiye, between 1973- 2011 and on 10 commercial varieties. The minimum, maximum, and average values and frequency percentage of the examined characters were presented. Principal Component Analysis extracted 9 PC axes containing 75.57% of the total variation and 27 agromorphologic traits were effective in the formation of this variation. A wide variation was observed among the populations. As a result of the clustering analysis, 3 main groups and 13 subgroups were formed. There were 7 subgroups in the first main group, 3 subgroups in the second main group and 3 subgroups in the third main group. Then, the most favorite 25 tomato accessions and the least favorite 2 accessions were determined by experienced panelists in terms of taste, flavor and aroma. These 27 accesiones that were selected in the first trial year were subjected to yield and some quality analyses (fruit width, height, weight, hardness, soluble solid content, titrable acidity, vitamin C, pH, EC, L, a, b, hue, chroma values) by setting up a trial with 3 control varieties in the second year and 6 control varieties in the third year of the study. The fruit hardness values of G2, G21, G25, G33, G87, G119, G160, G168 and the yield values of G25, G29, G78, G84, G168 were higher then others. It has been observed that the selected tomato populations have a wide range of fruit weight, fruit width and height, which can be preferred to many consumers. It has been determined that a lot of tomato accessions that are superior to the varieties in quality traits like soluble solid content, titrable acidity, solid content/titrable acidity value, vitamin C, pH and EC values, L, a, b, hue, chroma. It is thought that these accessions can be used as a source for improvement of quality in breeding programs. Also, G78, G84, G122, G160 and G168 tomato accessions have the highest point in terms of yield, hardness, solible solid content, titrable acidity, vitamin C, a/b and L values using weighted ranking method. These accessions can be used in tomato breeding programs in the future.