Vegetables are considered as essential one for a well-balanced diet. Karaikal is one of the regions of Union Territory of Puducherry located in the East Coast, almost at the end of the Cauvery Delta Zone. Diversification of cropping as an alternate to paddy is highly recommended for augumenting the farmers income and to sustain farming in this region. However, identification of suitable crop and variety to suit the existing soil and climatic conditions becomes essential. Since bitter gourd has a high nutritive and important among cucurbit vegetable it was chosen and the present investigation was carried out to study the per se performance of different bitter gourd hybrids in the Coastal condition of Karaikal for various growth and yield attributes. The study materials comprised of sixteen different bitter gourd hybrids assembled from various parts of the country and was performed at the Department of Horticulture, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru College of Agriculture and Research Institute, Karaikal, Puducherry, India. The study revealed the presence of significant differences among the hybrids evaluated for almost all the growth and yield contributing characters observed. Among the sixteen hybrids, the hybrid BGHS 8848 was found to record the best performance for days to first male flower anthesis (32.67) and days to first female flower anthesis (31.25) with the lowest values recorded. The hybrid NBGH 470 was found to produce both the first male (5.50) and female flower (7.17) at the lowermost nodes. For the character days to first fruit harvest the hybrid BGHS 4221 showed its best performance with 48.08 days while, BGHS 555 was found to record the longest duration with 149.17 days for final harvest. The hybrid Naveen with 17.72 primary branches at final harvest and BGHS 555 with a vine length of 5.11 m at final harvest were also found superior for these traits. Among the yield attributes, the fruit length was found maximum (24.11 cm) in NBGH 676, while fruit girth (14.51 cm), weight of individual fruit (146.26 gm) and flesh thickness (8.28 mm) were the highest in Pragati 065. The number of fruits vine-1 recorded was the maximum in NS 4501 (75.42), while the fruit yield vine-1 was found to be the highest in NBGH 676 (4.11 kg), recording an estimated yield of 38.02 t ha-1. From the present investigation it is noticed that the hybrid NBGH 676 could be considered as the best hybrid based on the highest yield recorded for this region.

Bitter gourd, F1, hybrids, per se performance, growth and yield attributes.

Based on the score value (Table 3) the hybrid NBGH 951 was found to superior with a score of 11 out of 16. However, based on the yield the bitter gourd hybrid NBGH 676 could be designated as the best with an yield of 4.11 kg vine-1, followed by NBGH 470 (3.88 kg vine-1). This particular hybrid NBGH 676 has been identified as a high yielding hybrid under Karaikal condition which is having biotic stress like salinity, this research study will be useful in suggesting the cultivation of this kind of hybrids in similar situation. Hence, the hybrid NBGH 676 could be commercially recommended for cultivation in this region

G.P. Prabakaran and V. Sundaram (2022). Studies on the Performance of Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L) Hybrids for Growth and Yield Attributes. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 14(2): 512-516.