Heterosis and combining ability in bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.)

Abstract

Ten parents of bitter gourd viz., Solan Hara, Pusa Do-Mousmi, BG-14, Green Long, MDU-1, IC-85605, IC-45346, IC-68272-1, IC-68237 and Solan Collection and their forty five crosses (using half diallelic system) along with check viz., Jhalri, US-6214 and US-6203 were evaluated in field trials in two locations Udaipur and Chittaurgarh in two different seasons which consists four environments. Economical heterobeltiosis for yield per vine (kg) were recorded in IC 85605 x IC 45346 (38.94%) and MDU 1 x IC 85605 (34.98%) over the environments. Good general combiners for various economic traits IC-68237 for number of primary branches per vine (0.09), fruit length (0.52), fruit diameter (0.17) & number of fruits per vine (0.22) over the pooled environments. SCA (Specific Combining Ability) for economic traits were observed in Solan Collection x IC 68237 (1.24) for number of fruits per vine, IC 68237 x MDU-1 for fruit length (1.82) and fruit weight (7.81). These results indicate that both additive and non-additive gene effects are involved in the inheritance of the studied traits. The additive gene action was more important than the non-additive ones in the genetics of most studied traits.