Exploitation of heterosis for yield and its contributing traits in bottle gourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Molina.) Standl.]

Abstract

Bottle gourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl.] also called white flower gourd or calabash gourd is an under exploited cucurbitaceous vegetable. Although, bottle gourd has a wide range of variability, very little attention has been given for its genetic improvement. The production of hybrids in bottle gourd having large number of seeds per fruit is commercially viable and hence, facilitates its hybrid seed production. Fifteen F1 hybrids obtained through 6×6 half diallel system were evaluated to estimate heterosis. The ANOVA exhibited significant genotypic differences, showing considerable genetic variability among different genotypes. On the basis of mean performance, the parents Punjab Komal followed by Pusa Naveen and Punjab Long were the best for yield and its attributes. The extent of standard heterosis for fruit yield per vine ranged from 34.52% to 126.10% over the check HBGH-35 while, that over Pusa Hybrid-3 ranged from 39.73% to 157.96%. However, based on the mean performance andestimates of standard heterosis, the hybrids from the crosses Pusa Naveen×Punjab Komal followed by KBG-16×Pusa Samridhi and Pusa Samridhi×Punjab Komal were considered best in terms of number of fruits per vine, average weight of fruit (g), fruit yield per vine (kg) and fruit yield per hectare (q). These crosses were promising with respect to yield and its contributing traits and thus, could be exploited for further effective selection and heterosis breeding to augment the yield potential of bottle gourd.