Abstract Vegetables have a special place in human diet and helath and hence play an important role in the food security of the growing world population. Eggplant is one of the important vegetables of the Solanaceae family and has been used as a food component in the household food basket for a long time. Knowledge of plant’s pollination system and inbreeding impacts is critical in the breeding schemes. This study aimed to assess the effects of inbreeding on seed production and morphological traits including yield using 4 hybrid cultivars Sally, Denis, Bartok and Belen compared to their open-pollinated ones (control). First experiment on F1 hybrids was conducted using a randomized complete block design with three replications in the greenhouse located in Dahaghan. Second experiment was conducted on F2 plants with six replications in the greenhouse located in the research farm of Isfahan University of Technology. The results of first experiment showed that the highest yield and number of fruits per plant belonged to the Bartok cultivar and the highest number and weight of seeds per fruit belonged to the Bellen cultivar. In the F2 generation, large and small grouped seeds were cultivated separately in each population and data analysis was done using 20 morphological and 3 biochemical traits. The results of analysis of variance showed that the seed size affected only three attributes viz cap length, weight and number of seeds of flowers with medium style. Although, there was a significant difference between some cultivars for most of the traits, no genotypic effect was attained for the yield. By analyzing the principal components, 3 components were extracted in the studied populations, which explained 76.94% of the total variations. Also, from the drawn biplot, with a strong association was observed between the yield and the number of fruits per plant, the number of seeds per fruit. In addition, the number of fruits per plant and the number of seeds had a positive and significant correlation with the percentage of long style flowers, which shows that with the increase in the number of long style flowers, the number of fruits per plant and the number of seeds per fruit increase. In eva‎luating the performance of F2 progeny, the highest yield and the number of fruits per plant, similar to F1, were related to the Bartok hybrid, and the highest number of seeds obtained from pollination in the F2 generation was observed in the Bartok genotype, even though, the efficiency of the pollination effect in this genotype was less compared to the others. Also, the analysis of internal variance and the coefficient of variation of the two yield traits and the number of fruits per plant in the F2 generation showed that Sally and Denis genotypes probably had the highest number of genes for the two traits of yield and number of fruits per plant.

محمدرضا سبزعليان دستجردي , احمد ارزاني

مريم حقيقي

اقافخر ميرلوحي فلاورجاني , مهدي كديور