SKUAST Journal of Research

The present investigation was carried out to generate information on combining ability (gca and sca) and nature and magnitude of gene action in bitter gourd at Division of Vegetable Science, SKUAST-Kashmir. During the study ten diverse lines were crossed with three testers to generate thirty crosses through line x tester mating design (Kempthorne, 1957). The set of thirty crosses along with their parents were evaluated in a RCBD with three replications at three different locations viz.; SKUAST-Kashmir, Shalimar (E1); Faculty of Agriculture, Wadura Sopore (E2) and KVK Pulwama (E3). The observations were recorded on twelve earliness and quality traits. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the parents and crosses for almost all the traits in individual as well as pooled environments. The variance due to SCA was significant for almost all the traits except total carotenoids. In general σ²_sca was found to be more than σ²_gca for all the traits which indicated the preponderance of non-additive gene action for the traits. Although dominance component was more in magnitude for all the traits in the present study but both the variances (σ²_gca and σ²_sca) were significant for most of the traits which reflects the importance of both additive and non-additive gene effects in the inheritance of these traits. The narrow sense heritability (n.s) was found to be low (< 30%) for node to first male flower appearance, days to anthesis of first male flower, days to first fruit harvest, total carotenoids, total phenols, total chlorophyll and iron content. It was moderate (30-50%) for node to first female flower appearance, days to anthesis of first female flower,¹ vitamin -C, dry matter content and dietary fibre content. The analysis of the parents for desirable high general combining ability effects revealed that out of twelve traits, the line NDBG-4 showed high desirable gca effects for seven traits followed by NDBG-1 (7 traits),NDBG-5 (6 traits), NDBG-7(6 traits),Pant Karela-1 (7 traits) and NDBG-17 (5 traits), NDBG-12(4 traits), NDBG-3(1 trait) and PBTH-52(1 trait). Such parents can be used as a potent source for improving most of the traits in the present set of material through hybridization of good general combiners for the concerned trait. The SCA analysis revealed that the best cross combinations with respect to SCA effects and per se performance were NDBG-17 × Jounpuri, NDBG-7 × Arka Harit and NDBG-6 × Local bitter gourd and NDBG-12 × Local bitter gourd for earliness; NDBG-1 × Arka Harit, NDBG-12 × Arka Harit, NDBG-17 × Local bitter gourd for quality traits. Thus the parents of such crosses may be used for developing hybrids followed by multi-location testing and release of promising ones on commercial scale.