Genetic diversity studies for improved horticultural traits in bitter gourd [Momordica charantia L.] genotypes

Abstract

Twenty-seven bitter gourd genotypes were evaluated atResearch farm of Department of Vegetable Science, CCS,Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar to find out suitablebitter gourd genotypes for future breeding programme.These genotypes were evaluated morphologically on leafand fruit characters along with sixteen quantitative traits. Ingeneral, ample variation was observed for most of leaf andfruit characters, except for leaf pubescence. Analysis ofvariance exhibited highly significant variation among allgenotypes for all the characters except nodes to first maleand female flower and leaf length (cm). The maximumgenotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation (GCVand PCV) were recorded for number of primary branches(22.50 and 23.14) and number of fruits per vine (26.41 and26.64). High heritability coupled with high genetic advanceas percent of mean were observed for number of fruits pervine (95.18 and 53.96), number of primary branches (85.20and 45.06), weight of 100 seeds (98.98 and 37.26) and fruityield per vine (96.64 and 31.03) showing strong impact ofadditive gene effect. The following bitter gourd genotypesviz., IC 85624 and HK 113 were recorded best in terms offruit yield.