Evoor, ShashikanthMulge, RavindraGasti, Vilas D.Rathod, VijayakumarKoulagi, SumangalaMAHBOOB2018-07-052018-07-052014-07UHSBhttp://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810057257TH492The investigation on “Studies on heterosis and combining ability for yield and quality characters in bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.)” was undertaken at Vegetable Science Unit of Kittur Rani Channamma College of Horticulture, Arabhavi, Thirty six crosses were developed by crossing three male (testers) with each of 12 females (lines). Crosses were evaluated along with the parents and commercial check in randomized block design with two replications and data was subjected to line × tester analysis. The magnitude of heterosis over the commercial check (Abhishek) was very high in the desired direction and it ranged from -35.50 to 31.89 per cent for vine length at 45 DAS, -46.77 to 9.35 per cent for vine length at 90 DAS, -22.36 to 21.45 per cent for number of branches at 90 DAS, -44.91 to 60.75 per cent for sex ratio(M: F), -45.79 to 24.97 per cent for number of fruits per vine, -0.46 to 25.02 per cent for fruit girth, 65.28 to 22.75 per cent for average fruit weight, -79.35 to 33.14 per cent for fruit yield per vine and -80.65 to 34.02 per cent for fruit yield per plot. The cross ABG-1 x CO exhibited maximum heterosis over the commercial check (Abhishek) for yield per hectare (14.00 %) followed by ABG-3 x CO (9.15 %) and ABG-1 x PR (5.62 %). The crosses ABG-1 x CO, ABG-3 x CO, ABG-11 x PDM, ABG-2 x PDM, ABG-10 x PR, and ABG-4 x PR were identified as the good specific combiners for fruit yield per hectare in order of top merit. Among parents, ABG-1, ABG-3 and ABG-4 exhibited significant general combining effects for yield per hectare and also good general combiners for overall traits studied. Hence these parents can be used as testers in future breeding programme. The predominant and non additive gene action was observed for traits like vine length at 90 DAS, days to last harvest, Sex ratio, ascorbic acid, fruit yield per plot, fruit yield per hectare, fruit length, average fruit weight, days to first harvest, days from fruit set to maturity, number of fruits per vine, number of branches per vine at 45 and 90 DAS and nodes upto first female flowering based on the GCA to SCA ratio which was very low. For improving these characters, it is suggested to follow recurrent selection or heterosis breeding.ennullThesis