Department of Horticulture, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, Udaipur 313 001
* Present Address: Central Institute for Arid Horticulture, Bikaner 334 006, Rajasthan
The present study was undertaken on bottlegourd in a 9×9 diallel cross excluding reciprocals. The 36 F1 hybrids along with nine parents were sown in RBD with three replication under four environments created by sowing the experimental material on two different dates at two different locations. The mean squares of gca and sca were highly significant for all the traits. This indicated that both additive and non additive genes played significant role in the inheritance of these traits. The gca:sca ratio was more than one for all the traits. Mean squares due to interaction, i.e. gca × environment and sca × environment were significant for all the traits. Cultivar Banswara Local-1, Pusa Naveen, 1C 92374 and PSPL were good general combiners for yield contributing traits in all the environments. Only, nine crosses exhibited significant positive sca effects for fruit yield contributing traits in E1, E2, E3, E4 and pooled environment. The cross combination Banswara Local 1 × Pusa Naveen, Banswara Local 1 × IC 92374 and IC 92374 × PSPL, exhibited significant economic heterosis for total fruit yield/plant and yield contributing characters.
