Studies on heterosis for fruit yield and quality attributing characters in ridge gourd (Luffa acutangula (L.) Roxb.)

Abstract

The present investigation was conducted on heterosis for fruit yield quality attributing characters in ridge gourd. Forty five F1 hybrids were generated by half diallel (excluding reciprocals) mating design. These F1 hybrids along with ten parents were evaluated in randomized block design with two replications at College farm, College of Horticulture, Venkataramannagudem during Rabi, 2018. Observations were recorded for five randomly selected and tagged plants from each treatment for fruit yield and quality attributing characters viz., number of fruits per vine, fruit length, fruit diameter, average fruit weight, fruit flesh thickness, number of seeds per fruit, fruit yield per vine, total soluble solids, ascorbic acid content, carotene content, total sugars, reducing sugars, non reducing sugars and fiber content. The values of F1 hybrids averaged over two replications were used for estimating heterosis. The top four heterotic cross combinations viz., VRG-24 x VRG-13, VRG-24 x VRG-16, Swarna Manjari x Arka Prasan and Swarna Manjari x VRG-16 were identified as promising for fruit length, average fruit weight and fruit yield per vine.