GENETIC DIVERSITY AND CHARACTER ASSOCIATION STUDIES IN BITTER GOURD (Momordica charantia L.)
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Date
2018-07
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University of Horticultural Sciences, Bagalkot (COLLEGE OF HORTICULTURE, KOLAR)
Abstract
The investigation on “Genetic diversity and character association studies in bitter gourd” was conducted at the vegetable block in the Department of Vegetable Science, College of Horticulture, Mysuru. Fourty genotypes of bitter gourd collected from different sources were evaluated in randomized block design with 2 replications during kharif 2017. The analysis of variance revealed significant (p = 0.05) differences among the genotypes for all the characters studies indicating the presence of wide range of variability in the genotypes. Based on Mahalonobis’s D2 analysis, the 40 genotypes were grouped into 6 clusters. The cluster II showed maximum intra-cluster distance (D2 = 104.02), whereas, the maximum inter cluster distance was observed between cluster II and VI (D2 = 1620.05). Among the 16 characters studied, ascorbic acid contributed maximum (37.31%) to genetic diversity. The higher GCV and heritability estimates coupled with high genetic advance over mean (GAM) were observed for the characters like fruit length, average fruit weight, fruit yield per vine, fruit yield per hectare, number of seeds per fruit and flesh thickness. This indicates predominance of additive component for these traits and hence direct selection would be more effective in improving these traits. The results on correlation and path analysis revealed high positive and significant association of fruit yield per vine with characters viz., fruit length, fruit diameter, duration of crop and average fruit weight and these characters also had high direct and indirect effect on fruit yield per vine. Hence, direct selection for these traits would be more useful in the improvement of fruit yield per vine.