~ 2551 ~ International Journal of Chemical Studies 2021; 9(1): 2551-2560 P-ISSN: 2349–8528 E-ISSN: 2321–4902 www.chemijournal.com IJCS 2021; 9(1): 2551-2560 © 2021 IJCS Received: 09-10-2020 Accepted: 17-11-2020 Sameena Lone Division of Vegetable Science, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India K Hussain Division of Vegetable Science, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India Majid Rashid Division of Vegetable Science, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India Syed Mazahir Hussain Division of Vegetable Science, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India Nawaz Ahmad Division of Vegetable Science, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India Mir Tabasum Ashraf Division of Vegetable Science, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India Corresponding Author: Sameena Lone Division of Vegetable Science, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India Comparative performance of various cherry tomato ( Solanum spp.) accessions and their crosses for various quantitative traits under open- field and polyhouse conditions Sameena Lone, K Hussain, Majid Rashid, Syed Mazahir Hussain, Nawaz Ahmad and Mir Tabasum Ashraf DOI: https://doi.org/10.22271/chemi.2021.v9.i1aj.11611 Abstract The present investigation was carried out at the Experimental Farm, Division of Vegetable Science, SKUAST-K, Shalimar, India during Kharif season 2020. Fifty-seven treatments comprising of 45 F1’s, 10 parents and 2 checks were evaluated for various yield and yield attributing traits in Augmented Bock Design (ABD). Analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the parents (accessions) as well as their crosses for all the traits under both environments, in the individual as well as in pooled data analysis. The maximum fruit yield hecatre -1 (q) was recorded in the accession EC-520074 (961.69) and cross EC-914092 x EC-914097 (1026.39) in E1; accession EC-914097 (719.69) and cross EC-914092 x VRT-02 (971.62) in E2 and accession WIR-3957 (611.93) and cross WIR-5032 x EC – 914092 (898.59) in pooled data analysis indicating that these should be considered for further improvement in future breeding programmes in terms of fruit yield hecatre -1 . Keywords: Variance, check, environment, genotype, cross Introduction Cherry tomato (Solanum spp., 2n=2x=24), one of the important botanical variety of the cultivated tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is a member of nightshade family ‘Solanaceae’, consisting of 96 genera (Akhtar et al., 2013) [2] and over 3000 species (Melomey et al., 2019; Sharma et al., 2019) [9, 13] distributed in three subfamilies, Solanoideae (to which Solanum belongs), Cestroideae, and Solanineae (Knapp et al., 2004; Akhtar et al., 2013) [8, 2] , all of which are diploid except two natural tetraploid populations of S. chilense (2n=4x=48) (Chetelat and Ji, 2007; Grandillo et al., 2011) [4, 6] . It is typically a day neutral plant, that often requires long growing periods to fetch more harvests and is one of the most promising crop under protected structures or shade net conditions (Vidyadhar et al., 2014) and reasonably tolerant to heat and drought. Being a self-pollinated crop, a definite degree of cross-pollination (0.07-10.0%) also occurs in it when stigma protrudes outside the level of anther (exerted) (Accotto et al., 2005). It is also known as salad tomato as its fruits are consumed more as a fruit rather than as a vegetable (Islam et al., 2012). Cherry tomato is native to the Andean region encompassing Ecuador and Peru of South America and thereafter it spread around the world following the Spanish colonization of the Americas (Grandillo et al., 2011) [6] . It was first found throughout tropical and subtropical America, later propagated in the tropics of Asia and Africa (Gharezi et al., 2012; Venkadeswaran et al., 2018) [5, 14] and is widely distributed in California, Korea, Germany, Mexico and Florida (Anonymous, 2009a) [3] . Though it became popular as a cash crop in various Asian countries, but it is still new in India as well as in Kashmir, as such its area, production and productivity has not been documented till date. But in Himachal Pradesh, protected cultivation of cherry tomatoes has been gaining importance from previous 5-6 years, on account of favourable growing conditions inside the polyhouse. It is perennial in its native habitat but is often grown as an annual crop in temperate climate. The growth habit of the plant is usually indeterminate and may reach up to 3 meters in height. The flowers are perfect and hermaphrodite and contain 5 green sepals, 5 yellow petals, 5