Multivariate analysis applied to tomato hybrid production.

Twenty characters were measured on 60 tomato varieties cultivated in the open-air and in polyethylene plastic-house. Data were analyzed by means of principal components, factorial discriminant methods, Mahalanobis D(2) distances and principal coordinate techniques. Factorial discriminant and Mahalanobis D(2) distances methods, both of which require collecting data plant by plant, lead to similar conclusions as the principal components method that only requires taking data by plots. Characters that make up the principal components in both environments studied are the same, although the relative importance of each one of them varies within the principal components. By combining information supplied by multivariate analysis with the inheritance mode of characters, crossings among cultivars can be experimented with that will produce heterotic hybrids showing characters within previously established limits.