Relationship between Fruit Yield and its Components in Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) Cultivars using Multivariate Statistical Methods

In order to investigate the relationship between different traits with yield, an experiment was conducted on 16 tomato genotypes in randomized complete blocks design, with three replications. Twenty agronomical traits including plant height, stem diameter, number of shoots, plant weight, number of branches, number and dry weight of leaves, stems and roots, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight, fruit length and width, length to width ratio and distance of fruit to the ground, chlorophyll content and yield were studied. Correlation analysis revealed that fruit yield was significantly and positively correlated with plant height, leaf number, chlorophyll content and fruit number. Plant height, leaf number and number of fruits had a positive and significant correlation with fruit yield. In order to remove the effect of the traits with little impact on fruit yield, stepwise regression analysis (correlation coefficient of 89 percent) was used. The results showed that the number of fruits per plant was the most important component. Also, the results of path analysis revealed that this traits (I= 0.94) exerted the highest positive direct effect and chlorophyll content (I= -0.059) showed a negative direct effect on fruit yield. According to the results of cophenetic correlation coefficient, tomato cultivars were clustered into two groups by UPGMA method. Also, results of cluster analysis were confirmed by Biplot. In conclusion, some morpho-physiological characteristics such as plant height, leaf number, chlorophyll content and fruit number are the most important criteria to selection of tomato hybrids with higher yield.