Breeding bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) for simultaneous improvement in yield, nutritional quality and downy mildew disease tolerance

Six phenotypically diverse bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) parents were crossed in a full-diallel mating design to determine the extent of heterobeltiosis, mode of gene action and combining ability effects for 17 quantitative traits. Field experiments were carried out at C Block Farm, Kalyani, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Nadia, West Bengal in two consecutive seasons in 2019. The predictability ratio indicated the preponderance of non-additive gene action for most of the traits. Based on general combining ability and mean performance, two genitors BCBG-1 and BCBG-11 were identified as potential parents. Based on mean performance, heterosis, and specific combining ability effects, the crosses BCBG-10 × BCBG-14 and BCBG-3 × BCBG-10 were identified as most promising. This investigation also suggested that bitter gourd breeders to include reciprocal crosses in hybridization programs as significant effect was noticed in the present study. Promising hybrids could also be exploited in segregating generations to identify pure lines with desirable traits. Commercially exploitable bitter gourd hybrids tolerant to downy mildew disease could be developed with involvement of a single parent tolerant to this disease. The results also suggested that commercial production of bitter gourd hybrids is a possible way to enhance the productivity, fruit quality and tolerance to downy mildew disease in bitter gourd.