Seed Development and Seed Physiological Maturation of Table Tomato F1 Hybrid Seeds (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.)

Abstract

      The study of Seed development and maturation of tomato F₁-hybrid seeds (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) was carried out at the production site at Kaneko seeds (Thailand) company, Lamphun province from December 2021-March 2022. The objective of this study is to find the suitable seed physiological maturity for table tomato for improved harvest time to increase the quantity and quality of tomato seeds. For this study, tomato KST-805F line was used as female parent and KST-805M line as male parent to produce tomato f1 hybrid seeds. When tomato plant grew into pollination stage, the sepals were cut off and tags were tied to the peduncle with every date of pollination to show the age of tomato until the first fruit were in maturity and the skin changed to dark red color and ready to harvest at about 45 days after pollination, then the pollination was stopped. Tomato fruits from 1-45 days were harvested after pollination to study fruit development. It was found that skin color of fruit started turning to orange color at 31 days after pollination which is the beginning of the ripe state for tomato KST-805F1 variety. Therefore, seed from 31-45 days after pollination were used for seed test of quality and quantity in laboratory. The result shows that the optimum of physiological maturity for tomato harvesting was 44 days after pollination. Due to high germination (97%) and cumulative dry weight of 1,000 seeds, the highest was 0.850 g., the color of fruit was changed to red color with L value is 34.60, a* value is 23.75 and b* value is 12.93 respectively.