Combining ability analysis in bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) for potential quality improvement.

B C Kundu,A K Mahato,F Ahamed,M S Rahman,M B Jalloh,G M Mohsin,K M Delowar Hossain,Md Amirul Alam

doi:10.1590/1519-6984.255605

Abstract

Combining ability analysis provides useful information for the selection of parents, also information regarding the nature and magnitude of involved gene actions. Crops improvement involves strategies for enhancing yield potentiality and quality components. Targeting the improvement of respective characters in bitter gourd, combining ability and genetic parameters for 19 characters were estimated from a 6×6 full diallel analysis technique. The results revealed that the variances due to general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) were highly significant for most of the important characters. It indicated the importance of both additive and non-additive gene actions. GCA variances were higher in magnitude than SCA variances for all the characters studied indicating the predominance of the additive gene effects in their inheritance. The parent P2 (BG 009) appeared as the best general combiner for earliness; P1 (BG 006) for number of fruits, average single fruit weight and fruit yield; P4 (BG 027) for node number of first female flower and days to seed fruit maturity; P3 (BG 011) for fruit length and thickness of the fruit flesh; P5 (BG 033) for 100-seed weight; and P6 for number of nodes per main vine. The SCA effect as well as reciprocal effect was also significant for most of the important characters in different crosses.

Highlights

Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) locally known as Karala/Uchha is an important vegetable and belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae
Mean square of reciprocal effect of 11 characters was higher than the specific combining ability (SCA), which indicated that reciprocal effect exists in bitter gourd
Shukla et al (2014a) studied ll parent diallel in bitter gourd and observed that general combining ability (GCA) and SCA variances were significant for all 13 characters they studied

Summary

Introduction

Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) locally known as Karala/Uchha is an important vegetable and belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae. Bitter gourd has relatively high nutritional value in respect of iron and ascorbic acid contents with antidiabetic and anti-obesity properties. It is a rich source of antioxidants, flaviooids and other polyphenol compounds (Alam et al, 2015). WHO/ FAO recommends intake of a minimum of 400 grams or five servings of fruits and vegetables per day for the prevention of chronic diseases such as heart diseases, cancer, diabetes, and obesity. There is a big gap between the demand and supply of vegetables in Bangladesh. From nutrient and health benefit considerations, improvement of crop yield and production of this vegetable crop is desirable and important to mitigate the future demand

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Results

Conclusion