Genetic variability in bottle gourd

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out at Main Experiment Station of Department of Vegetable Science, Narendra Deva University of Agriculture & Technology, Narendra Nagar, (Kumarganj) Ayodhya (U.P.), India during summer season of 2013 in a Randomized Block Design with three replications. Observations were recorded for twelve quantitative characters viz., node to first staminate flower anthesis, node to first pistillate flower anthesis, days to first staminate flower anthesis, days to first pistillate flower anthesis, days to first picking, number of fruits/ plant, fruit weight (kg), fruit length (cm), fruit circumference (cm), vine length at the time of last harvest (m), number of branches/plant, fruit yield (kg/plant). The analysis of variance showed highly significant differences for all the characters studied indicating considerable variability among the genotypes. The highest GCV (63.07%) and PCV (63.75%) were observed for fruit yield (kg/plant). In general PCV was marginally higher than the corresponding GCV indicated the less influence of environment in the expression of the characters under study. The broad sense heritability was high for all characters expected genetic advance as percent of mean was also moderate to high for all the economic traits. Thus, most of the economic characters studied in the present investigation were expected to exhibit satisfactory response through selection.