Genetic diversity studies for improved horticultural traits in bitter gourd [Momordica charantia L.] genotypes

Twenty-seven bitter gourd genotypes were evaluated at Research farm of Department of Vegetable Science, CCS, Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar to find out suitable bitter gourd genotypes for future breeding programme. These genotypes were evaluated morphologically on leaf and fruit characters along with sixteen quantitative traits. In general, ample variation was observed for most of leaf and fruit characters, except for leaf pubescence. Analysis of variance exhibited highly significant variation among all genotypes for all the characters except nodes to first male and female flower and leaf length (cm). The maximum genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation (GCV and PCV) were recorded for number of primary branches (22.50 and 23.14) and number of fruits per vine (26.41 and 26.64). High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as percent of mean were observed for number of fruits per vine (95.18 and 53.96), number of primary branches (85.20 and 45.06), weight of 100 seeds (98.98 and 37.26) and fruit yield per vine (96.64 and 31.03) showing strong impact of additive gene effect. The following bitter gourd genotypes viz., IC 85624 and HK 113 were recorded best in terms of fruit yield.