Pollen Source and Grafting Effects on Morphological Characteristics and Lycopene Pigment of Tomato Fruit

To evaluate the effects of pollen source and grafting on morphological characteristics and color of tomatoes, different cultivars with various fruit colors were grown and investigated in three experiments. In the first experiment, the red sweet olive cultivar was used as female parent and yellow pear, violet cherry, yellow palm garden and orange olive cultivars were used as male parents. In the second experiment, the orange olive cultivar was used as female parent and yellow palm garden, yellow pear and violet cherry cultivars were used as male parents. In the third experiment, the red cherry cultivar was used as scion and grafted on large red and yellow palm garden cultivars, and red cherry cultivar was used as control without grafting. Manual pollination was used in the first and the second experiments. Based on the results of the first experiment, different pollen sources significantly affected volume of fruit in red olive cultivar (P≤0.05). In the second experiment, different pollen sources significantly affected weight and volume of fruits in the orange olive cultivar (P≤0.05). In the third experiment, different rootstocks significantly affected fruit length of red cherry tomato cultivar (P≤0.05). Results of this research showed that selection of hybrid fruits is possible by fruit volume and weight and also rootstock affects scion fruit characteristics.