COMBINING ABILITY STUDIES IN RIDGE GOURD [LUFFA ACUTANGULA (ROXB.) L.]

Abstract

Twenty eight hybrids were crossed in a diallel fashion excluding reciprocals and to estimate combining ability in ridge gourd for fruit yield and yield components. F 1 ’s and parents were evaluated under four environments created by two different date(s) of sowing at two different locations. Three parents viz., AHRG-1, Salumber Long and Jaipuri Long were found to be good general combiners in all over the environments. The cross Pusa Nasdar x Arka Sumeet was found significant specific combining ability in more than one environment while, Jaipuri Long x Arka Sujath in E 1 , AHRG-1 X Jaipuri Long in E 2 , AHRG-1 x Arka Sujath in E 3 and Jaipuri Long x Swarna Manjari in E 4 environment have been identified as good specific combiner for fruit yield per vine. Therefore, these crosses could be utilized for further selection of high yielding progenies to achieve a quantum jump in improvement of ridge gourd.