Heterosis studies for growth, flower and yield characters in sponge gourd (Luffa cylindrica (Roem.) L.)

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out to assess heterosis for growth, earliness, flowering, yield and quality traits in sponge gourd (Luffa cylindrica Roem.) using a half-diallel mating design (excluding reciprocals) involving nine diverse parental lines, which generated 36 F₁ hybrids. The experiment was conducted in a Randomized Block Design (RBD) with three replications to evaluate heterotic performance across a range of morpho-physiological and yield-related parameters. Heterosis breeding is an important approach widely adopted for genetic improvement of various crops across the world. Evaluation of hybrids along with their parents revealed that the cross combinations HR-1 × SG-3, HR-6 × SG-3 and HR-1 × HR-3 showed highest negative heterosis for almost the flowering characters such as days to first female flowering, days to first harvest and days to 50% plants to flower and positive heterosis was observed for characters such as vine length, number of branches, days to last harvest, fruit length, fruit diameter, number of fruits per vine, average fruit, fruit yield per vine, fruit yield per plot and fruit yield per hectare which were supercilious for earliness, yield parameters. Based on its yield potential and favoured earliness characteristics, the HR-1 × SG-3 emerged as the most promising hybrid, exhibiting the highest fruit yield of 17.26 t/ha along with 63.45% standard heterosis for yield per hectare. Hence the best hybrids are recommended for commercial exploitation of heterosis.