Stability Analysis for Fruit Yield and its Component Traits in Indian Bottle Gourd (Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl.) Varieties

Stability of 18 bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl.) varieties was studied for fruit yield and yield contributing traits during Rabi-summer seasons of 2011–12, 2012–13 and 2013–14. Pooled analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among the varieties for all the traits except for leaf width, ovary length and fruit weight suggesting enough genetic variability among the genotypes for all these traits. Similarly the mean squares for environments were also significant for all the traits except peduncle length and fruit length indicting that the environments under study are diverse enough. Further, genotype × environment (G × E) interactions were also significant for all the traits suggesting that the traits responded to the environments differently. The environments (linear) also differed significantly for all the traits except leaf width and peduncle length which indicates that the environments selected for testing of genotypes were quite varied in their effect on the performance of genotypes. Considering all the stability parameters, the varieties, Narendra Rashmi and IIHR-19-1 proved to be most stable genotypes exhibiting significantly higher mean fruit yield/ha. For the yield contributing traits viz., fruit number, Narendra Dharidhar, KBGR-12, Pusa Samrudhi and Kalyanpur Long were stable over environments and for fruit weight Kashi Ganga, Punjab Komal and Pant Lauki-3 were stable with highest mean values, unit regression and least deviation which can be exploited for these yield contributing traits in the bottle gourd improvement programs.