CHARACTERIZATION AND EVALUATION OF WINTER FRUITED BOTTLE GOURD [LAGENARIA SICERARIA (MOL.) STANDL.]

Winter fruited bottle gourd is one of the most important vegetable grown during winter season due to its crisp, soft, and tasty fruits. Evaluated genotypes indicated a large genetic variation in characters like days to germination, flowering, edible maturity, number of branches/plant, fruit size (length x width), number of nodes on main vine, vine length, number of fruits/plant, individual fruit weight and yield/plant. High estimates of heritability were observed for number of nodes on main vine, fruit size, days to flowering and number of branch/plant. Genotypic correlations were higher than those of the corresponding phenotypic correlation coefficients indicating the inherent association among the various traits. At the genotypic level, days to first flowering had significant and positive association with days to edible maturity, number of branches/plant, number of nodes on main vine and plant height. The highest positive direct effect (genotypic level) was exerted by vine length followed by fruit weight, yield/plant, days to first flowering and fruit size. Genotypes WVR-7, WVR-15, WVR-10 and WVR-19 were found promising for earliness, fruit size, individual fruit weight and yield.