Evaluation of Genetic Variability, Heritability and Genetic Advance in Thirty-Five Bottle Gourd (Lagenaria Siceraria) Varieties for Yield and Yield Related Traits

Abstract

Thirty-five bottle gourd genotypes collected from different geographical locations were utilized for the present study to study genetic variability, genetic diversity and character association among 15 traits. The characters number of primary branches, sex ratio, fruit weight, fruit length, fruit width, number fruit vine -1 and fruit yield vine -1 recorded high amount of genetic variability along with heritability and genetic advance indicating that selection for these characters are simple and easy. The evaluation showed the presence of wide genetic diversity as they formed five gene constellations in genetic divergence analysis. The clustering pattern of genotypes revealed that there was no parallelism between geographical diversity and genetic diversity among the genotypes studied. The cluster III was found to constitute the maximum of nineteen genotypes; while cluster V was mono genotypic. The high inter cluster distance was observed between clusters IV and V which indicated the possibility of getting transgressive segregants in advanced generations by intermating between genotypes belonging to these clusters. Path analysis revealed that the fruit characters such as fruit weight, fruit length and number of fruits vine -1 were considered as important traits which directly or indirectly influenced the yield. The correlation study also confirmed the same.