Indian Journal of Plant Genetic Resources

A total of thirty-eight accessions of Chow-chow were collected from Meghalaya (20), Mizoram (2) and Sikkim (16). These accessions were grown in augmented design at Barapani (Meghalaya) to study the economic traits both quantitative as well as qualitative. A range of fruit colour was observed such as dark green, light green, yellow, light yellow, cream and white. A total of 13 accessions were found without spine and remaining were having spine from soft to hard in nature. The fruit length varied from 5.7 cm (Sikkim-11) to 15.1 cm (Megha-21) with average length of 11.3 cm. The maximum fruit diameter was recorded 10.9 cm for Sikkim-16 followed by 10.3 for Megha13 and 10.2 for Megha-14 while lowest 5.2 cm for Sikkim-3. The number of fruits per plant ranged between 2.5 (Sikkim-3) to 73.3 (Megha-20) with average fruit per plant of 28.2. The average fruit weight varied from 134 gm (Megha-9) to 406 gm (Megha-3). The highest fruit yield per plant was recorded 25.0 kg for Sikkim-17 while lowest 0.50 kg for Sikkim-3. The average fruit yield per plant was 7.6 kg. The accessions collected from Meghalaya were early maturing while the accessions collected from Sikkim late in maturity. Biochemical analysis of fruit revealed that higher TSS content observed for Megha-16 (6.2%), Sikkim-12 (6%) and Sikkim-10 (5.5%) while high level of ascorbic acid 24.7 mg/100gm in Sikkim-1 and followed by 23.4 mg/100gm in Sikkim-13.