GENETIC VARIABILITY AND VARIETAL PERFORMANCE IN ASH GOURD[Benincasa hispida (Thunb) Cogn.] GENOTYPES GENOTYPES

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at All India Coordinated Research Project on Vegetable Crops ,Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar in two seasons viz. kharif, 2015 and kharif ,2016,with the objective to find out suitable ash gourd genotypes for earliness and high yield under Odisha conditions out of 18 ash gourd genotypes (11 landraces collected from different districts of Odisha and 7 released varieties). Results revealed that in respect of fruit yield, the genotype Kashi Surbhi (10134.686 g/plant) was the best followed by Kashi Dhawal(7678.655 g/plant), Pusa Sabji Petha(6626.995 g/plant), Pusa Urmi (6376.530 g/plant) and BAGS8(6124.365 g/plant). Kashi Surbhi was also the earliest in respect of fruit setting while BAGS-2 was noted for highest number of female flowers per plant (39.50).The genotype BAGS- 1 recorded the maximum number of fruits per plant (4.965) while fruit weight was highest in Kashi Dhawal. BAGS-7 produced maximum number and weight of seeds per fruit. The characters number of seeds /fruit and weight of seeds/fruit having high GCV, heritability and GA(%) are under the influence of additive gene action. It may be concluded that the genotypes Kashi Surbhi and Kashi Dhawal can be recommended for cultivation in Odisha.