Influence of seed priming with gibberlic acid on antidiabatic vine - bitter gourd ( Momordica charantia L.) Genotypes

Abstract

Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) is a tropical and subtropical vine crop belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae. It finds prime place among the high valuable vegetables, because of its nutritive value and medicinal properties such as antidiabetic, antidote, antipyretic, appetizing and stomachic. In crop production the germination of seed is very important factor which decide the crop stand as it has hard seed coat. Hence, the study was conducted at College of Horticulture, Mudigere during 2017-18 to enhance seed germination in bitter gourd using GA3. Among all the genotypes, Hassan local treated with 100ppm gibberlic acid recorded significantly higher germination percentage (75.80 %) followed by Shivamogga local (74.15 %) and the lowest germination percentage was observed in Bidar local (22.5 %). From the present investigation it was concluded that soaking of seeds in gibberlic acid @ 100ppm for 24 h helps to enhance the seed germination percentage in bitter gourd.