Development of Quantitative Trait-based Yield Assessment and Forecasting Models for Eggplant (Solanum melongena spp) Genotypes Selection

Abstract

Eggplant is an economically significant vegetable that is extensively cultivated in Sierra Leone. To identify the best performing eggplant variety that could meet producers' and consumers' needs, a field experiment was conducted to evaluate the vegetative growth and yield performance of three diversities of eggplant. The study utilized the Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications. A systematic randomized selection and tagging on seven experimental eggplants as sample eggplants per plot summing up to a total of 21 sample eggplants per replication was done one week after transplanting. The analysis showed that yield traits were affected by the environment. The analysis further demonstrated that genotype Solanum robustum – efloraofindia had the highest fresh fruit yield mean of 4.14 kg/harvested/genotype. The performance of Solanum robustum – efloraofindia was better than the other two genotypes for growth and yield traits. All the eggplant characters had a high phenotypic coefficient of variation. This implied that traits of eggplant were influenced by the environment and genotypic coefficient of variation estimation result showed that fresh fruit yield (FFY) of 40.67% and eggplant stem girth (ESG) of 41.97% had the highest genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV). The genetic advance had an outstanding percentage of FFY at 78.51% and ESG of 200.54%. The broad-sense heritability also recorded the highest percentage mean of 62.51% (FFY) and 149.44% for ESG. Additionally, most of the traits recorded a weak positive correlation estimation in this study which may have occurred due to the environmental effect. Model two stands as the best model, followed by model four for eggplant yield improvement. Therefore, genotype Solanum robustum – efloraofindia had been identified as the best performing yielding of economic importance, and Solanum robustum – efloraofindia agro-morphological characterization is recommended for commercial cultivation and breeding purposes.