Heterosis Studies for Growth, Flower and Yield Characters in Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.)

Author: Chidanand Vannuri, Vilas D. Gasti, Vijaykumar Rathod, Chandrakant S. Kamble, Dileepkumar Masuthi, Abdul Rahaman M. Nadaf and S.G. Praveenkumar

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Abstract

Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) also known as balsam pear or karela, is an easily cultivated plant belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae. It is a native of tropical Asia, more especially of Indo Burma, which includes East India and South China. Despite the crop potential, economic and its medicinal use the present study was undertaken using twelve lines and three testers to develop 36 F1 hybrids in L × T (Line × Tester) pattern. Evaluation of hybrids along with their parents revealed that the cross combinations Katahi Vaibhav × Preethi, Green Long × Preethi and Katahi Vaibhav × Co-1showed highest positive heterosis, which were supercilious for earliness and yield parameters whereas, IC505640-2 × Co-1 and Green Long × Preethi expressed superior for quality parameters resulting as best hybrids. Based on its yield potential and favoured earliness characteristics, the Katahi Vaibhav × Preethi hybrid was chosen as the best hybrid out of 36 cross combinations, with a yield of 14.32 t/ha. Hence the best hybrids are recommended for commercial exploitation of heterosis

Keywords

Bitter gourd, hybrids, per se performance, Heterosis, Better parent heterosis, Standard heterosis

Conclusion

Based on mean performance, the top promising crosses for marketable yield per plant were Katahi Vaibhav × Preethi (2.87 kg), Green Long × Preethi (2.66 kg) and Katahi Vaibhav × Co-1 (2.46 kg). The hybrids namely, Katahi Vaibhav × Preethi, Green Long × Preethi and Katahi Vaibhav × Co-1 were best for earliness and yield parameters, the hybrids namely IC505640-2 × Co-1 and Green Long × Preethi were best for quality parameters and also expressed significant and desirable best parent heterosis and standard heterosis for the major traits. Thus, these hybrids can be exploited in practical plan breeding for selection of better transgressive segregants and they may also be exploited through heterosis breeding programme in order to achieve hybrids with high fruit yield

References

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How to cite this article

Chidanand Vannuri, Vilas D. Gasti, Vijaykumar Rathod, Chandrakant S. Kamble, Dileepkumar Masuthi, Abdul Rahaman M. Nadaf and S.G. Praveenkumar (2024). Heterosis Studies for Growth, Flower and Yield Characters in Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.). Biological Forum – An International Journal, 16(8): 33-40.