The present experiment was carried out with nine diverse parents to develop thirty-six F1’s and F2’s by using half-diallel mating design to estimate the combining ability for fruit yield and its components in bottle gourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl.]. The analysis of variance for combining ability in F1 and F2 generations revealed highly significant mean square differences for general and specific combining ability for the studied traits. Parent Santosh was found good general combiner for number of fruits per plant, fruit girth, fruit yield per plant and total soluble solids in both the generations. Likewise, parent Punjab Long was found good general combiner for fruit length, fruit girth and average fruit weight in both the generations. Pusa Naveen was good general combiner for number of nodes on main vine, vine length, number of fruits per plant and fruit length in F1 and F2 generations. Similarly, parent JBGL-43 was good general combiner for total soluble solids in both

Combining ability, Half-diallel mating design, Yield, Bottle gourd

The per se performance appeared to be a good indication of gca and sca effects for parents and crosses, respectively in both F1 and F2 generations. Hence, it could be utilized while selecting the parents and crosses for further breeding programme. The parents with high gca effects in F1 also showed more or less similar trend in F2 suggesting the feasibility of estimating gca effects from the data of F2 generation. Accordingly, Santosh, Punjab Long, JBGL-43, JBOGL-01-42 and Pusa Naveen offer the best possibilities of exploitation for the development of improved inbred lines with enhanced fruit yielding ability. It is suggested that population involving these lines in a multiple crossing programme may be developed for isolating desirable recombinants. On the other hand, the crosses, Arka Bahar x Santosh and Punjab Long x Santosh were found to be the best specific combiners for fruit yield per plant and also showed best per se performance in both the generations. This indicated that ge

Patel, H.R. and Mehta, D.R. (2021). Determining Combining Ability for Fruit Yield and its Component Traits in Bottle Gourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl.]. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 13(2): 187-200.