Variation in agronomic traits and lycopene in advanced tomato (solanum lycopersicum L.) cultivars

In order to evaluate the agronomic behavior, genotypic variation, lycopene content, and other components of fruit quality, eight advanced tomato lines were planted in greenhouses during two crop cycles, August-December 2008 and February-July 2009. Tomato lines showed significant differences in leaf length (LL), stem diameter (SD), number of flowers per branch (FLNB), number of fruits per branch (FRNB), locules per fruit (LPF), and fruit length (FRL), and the greatest phenotypic expression in fruit traits was quantified in August-December 2008. Environmental variance was significantly higher than the genotypic and genotype-environment interaction variances in LL, FRNB, fruits per plant, average weight of fruit, and yield. The estimated values for broad-sense heritability presented intermedium to high levels (H2 > 0.23) in diameter fruit, FRL, LPF, FLBN and FRNB. Lycopene varied from 9.6 to 16.8 in fresh samples, and from 203.8 to 367.6 mg/100 g in dry samples. Vitamin C varied from 9.7 to 16.0 mg/100 g of fresh material. The variation in Hue angle (0.94-1.00), chromaticity (44.0-53.5) and maturity index (12.0-19.2) indicated that, in general, all evaluated lines have desirable characteristics for producers and consumers, with L-106 and L-109 being the most outstanding in terms of agronomic traits and fruit quality.