Studies on heterosis and combining ability in bottlegourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) StandL]

Abstract

Nine parental lines of bottlegourd and their 36 F1 hybrids obtained from half diallel were studied to investigate the extent of heterosis and general and specific combining ability effects for yield and yield attributing characters. The mean squares due to GCA and SCA were significant for all the characters. The ratio, and2 gcal and2 sca suggested that non-additive gene action had greater role in the inheritance of all the characters except for average weight of marketable fruit, node at which first female flower appeared, number of branches per plant and vine length, where additive gene action had played an important role. Out of the nine parents, UL-4 was adjudged the best general combiner as it depicted high gca effect In desirable direction for most of the traits. Regarding sca effects, UL-2 x UL-4 showed highest sca effects for total fruit yield and UL-2 x UL-10 for days to first harvest. The extent of heterosis over the three best crosses for total fruit yield per plant (68.44-91.02% over better parent and 80.94-89.47% over check variety) revealed that there was a great scope of realizing higher yield in bottlegourd through heterosis breedi~. The cross combination UL-2 x UL-4 registered the highest economic heterosis (89.47%) for total fruit yield and other characters including earliness.