Performance of parental lines and derived hybrids for yield and its attributing traits of sponge gourd [Luffa cylindrical L. (Roem)]

Introduction

Sponge gourd, also as 'Smooth gourd, bath sponge, dish-cloth gourd is a popular vegetable of tropical and sub-tropical regions. In India, it occupies large cultivation area in Northern region where it grows on commercial scale as well as in kitchen garden. There, it is important part of crop rotation for small and large scale farmers and sown in summer and rainy season. The major sponge gourd producing states are Uttar Pradesh, West Bangal, Bihar, Assam, Andra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Sponge gourd is a monoecious vine which produces deep yellow flowers (male and female flowers separately) at every node. Male flowers occur early than female flower in a cluster form called receme while female presents solitary and can be easily distinguish due to tiny miniature fruit which attached below flower petals. It is cultivated for its tender immature fruit which can either be consumed as cooked, fried or used in soup. Its seed oil which is colourless, odorless and tasteless, used in cooking is a good source of protein, unsaturated fatty acid and can be used as powerful antioxidant. The mature dried fruit have a dense network of fiber, made up of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, used as industrial fiber for preparing of bathing sponge, packaging material, coushing material, commercial filters and shoe sole. Sponge gourd is been use in traditional medicine since ancient time. It is used for treatment of various infections, including arthritis, cancer, inflammatory diseases, diarrhea and viral diseases (Abdel-Salam et al. 2019) [1] . Despite its diverse application, not much focus is given for improvement of its horticultural traits. As a result, only a limited number of varieties and hybrids are cultivated in India. Because of its monoecious and cross-pollinated nature, exploitation of hybrid vigour can be done easily in this crop for improvement. Keeping this in view, the present investigation was undertaken to study mean performance of hybrids in respect of their parents over two variable seasons.

Materials and Methods

Eight diverse released varieties collected from various institutes of India were used as parents and 28 F 1 hybrids were developed using half diallel mating design during summer season 2024 at Vegetable Research Farm, Banda University of Agriculture & Technology, Banda. These 28 F 1 hybrids along with 8 parents were evaluated in randomized block design with three replication for various growth and yield related traits during spring-summer and rainy season 2025. All the cultural practices were adopted to raise a healthy crop. Five plants per plot were selected randomly for collecting data on eleven parameters viz. days to 50% germination, node to first male flower emergence, node to first female flower emergence, days to first male flower emergence, days to first female flower emergence, days to 1 st fruit harvest, fruit length, fruit girth, fruit weight, yield per plant and yield per hectare.

Results and Discussion

The mean performance of all parents and hybrids was noted significant for all studied traits revealing that all the parents were genetically diverse and have potential to use in breeding programme. The mean value of 8 parents and 28 F1 hybrids were presented in table 1, 2, 3 and 4. An examination on mean performance of all 36 genotypes indicated that for days to 50% germination, the mean value among parents ranged from 7.33 (K. Divya) to 11.00 days (Ken Swadisht) and 5.00 (K. Kalyani) to 7.00 days (K. Jyoti) whereas in hybrids, it varied from 6.00 to 11.00 days and 3.33 to 7.00 days, the hybrids which took least days to germinate were Ken Swadisht × Panjab Nikhar (5 days) and, Panjab Nikhar × K. Vandana (3.33 days), K. Kalyani × K. Divya (3.33 days) for spring-summer and rainy season, respectively. these results are in accordance with Khairiya et al. (2023) [5] who also noticed a range of 5.33 to 8.00 for parents and 5.00 to 6.67 days in hybrids for germination of seeds. Node to 1 st male flower's mean ranged from 5.50 (K. Jyoti) to 7.10 (Panjab Nikhar) and 9.03 (K. Jyoti) to 12.78 (Pusa Supriya) for parental genotypes while for hybrids, from 4.30 (Ken Swadisht × K. Kalyani) to 7.53 (Panjab Nikhar × K. Jyoti) and 8.22 (K. Kalyani × Pusa Supriya and K. Shreya × K. Divya) to 12.11 (Panjab Nikhar × K. Vandana) for both spring-summer and rainy season, sub-sequencely. Chauhan et al. (2018) [3] also noticed 4.33 to 10.67 number node for 1 st male flower emergence in their parental lines meanwhile 3.67 to 12.67 number node in hybrids. In parental genotypes, 1 st female flower node occurs at 10.30 (K. Jyoti) to 15.90 (Pusa Supriya) and 14.83 (K. Kalyani) to 17.32 (K. Shreya) meanwhile among hybrids, 1 st female flower node occurred at 8.10 (Ken Swadisht × K. Divya) to 14.80 (Panjab Nikhar × K. Jyoti) and 12.50 to 17.67 (Panjab Nikhar × K. Shreya) during spring-summer and rainy season, respectively. This result confined with Chauhan et al. (2018) [3] as they also reported 12 th node to 26.67 th node in parents while 9 th node to 23.67 th node in hybrids for 1 st female flower emergence. The characters such as lowest nodes to male-female flower and minimum days to male-female occurs are all contribute in early crop production, thus are desirable for selection to develop an early variety. Data pertaining to days to 1 st male flower emergence diverge 47.17 (K. Divya) to 54.26 days (K. Jyoti) among parents, in hybrids, ranged from 39.93 (K. Shreya × K. Divya) to 60.30 days (K. Vandana × Panjab nikhar). In rainy season, K. Kalyani (41.00) took minimum days while Pusa Supriya (45.83) took maximum days for 1 st male flower emergence within parents while hybrid, Panjab Nikhar × K. Kalyani (34.83) took least days. Days to 1 st female flower emergence varied from 53.23 (K. Divya) to 61.10 (K. Kalyani) and 45.33 (K. Shreya) to 50.93 (Ken Swadisht) in parents for spring-summer and rainy season, respectively and, among hybrids, 46.00 (Pusa Supriya × K. Divya) to 61.47 days (K. Kalyani × K. Shreya) and 37.62 (K. Shreya × K. Divya) to 51.37 days (Panjab Nikhar × K. Jyoti) for spring-summer and rainy season, respectively. Days to 1 st fruit harvest for spring-summer season varied from 60.11 (K. Divya) to 68.57 days (K. Kalyani) in parents, whereas the hybrids ranged from 51.95 (K. Shreya × K. Divya) to 71.02 days (K. Kalyani × K. Shreya). For rainy season, in parental genotype, K. Shreya and K. Vandana (51.50) received 1 st fruit harvest in least days whereas Ken Swadisht took maximum days (56.17) while hybrids, K. Shrey × K. Divya and Ken Swadisht × Pusa Supriya took minimum days to 1 st fruit pick (44.50 days) and K. Kalyani × K. Divya took maximum (57.13 days). The mean of inter-nodal length for spring-summer season varied from 7.25 (K. Kalyani) to 8.81 cm (K. Vandana) for parents. Among hybrids, its value varied from 5.91 (Ken Swadisht × Pusa Supriya) to 9.22 cm (K. Kalyani × Pusa Supriya) while in rainy season, it ranged 9.85 (K. Jyoti) to 11.58 cm (K. Vandana) in parental genotypes whereas hybrid, Ken Swadisht × K. Divya (8.18 cm) expressed least internode distance. Data pertaining to fruit length diverge from 21.52 (Panjab Nikhar) to 17.19 cm (Kashi Divya) and 25.66 (Panjab Nikhar) to 19.33 cm (Kashi Shreya) for parents meanwhile 27.20 (Ken Swadisht × Kashi Jyoti) to 16.55 cm (Kashi Kalyani × Kashi Divya) and 34.56 (Panjab Nikhar × Kashi Shreya) to 19.56 cm (Pusa Supriya × Kashi Shreya) for hybrids for both spring-summer and rainy season, respectively. The fruit girth of sponge gourd varied from 12.24 (Panjab Nikhar) to 9.69 cm (Kashi Jyoti) and 14.05 (Kashi Vandana) to 11.80 cm (Kashi Shreya) for parents whereas from 14.22 (Ken Swadisht × Kashi Jyoti) to 10.42 cm (Kashi Kalyani × Pusa Supriya) and 15.78 (Ken Swadisht × Kashi Jyoti) to 11.26 cm (Kashi Vandana × Kashi Divya) for hybrids, for spring-summer and rainy season, respectively. Mean of fruit weight exhibited from 124.70 (Panjab Nikhar) to 102.67 g (Kashi Kalyani) and 153.19 (Panjab Nikhar) to 123.70 g (Kashi Divya) within parental genotypes for sub-sequenced seasons while hybrids, Panjab Nikhar × Pusa Supriya (135.26 and 181.10 g) expressed maximum fruit weight and Kashi Vandana × Kashi Shreya (94.83 g) and Pusa Supriya × Kashi Shreya (119.06 g) minimum for spring-summer and rainy season, respectively. The significant differences observed among parents and hybrids across both seasons suggest the presence of considerable genetic variation for fruit length, girth and weight which may be exploited in breeding programmes aimed at improving this trait. Yield per plant considered most economic trait. In this study, fruit yield per plant ranged from 1.88 (Pusa Supriya) to 1.26 kg (Kashi Shreya and Kashi Kalyani) and, 3.53 (Panjab Nikhar) to 2.25 kg (Kashi Kalyani) in parental genotypes nevertheless in hybrids, 2.26 (Ken Swadisht × Kashi Jyoti) to 0.94 kg (Kashi Vandana × Kashi Shreya and Kashi Jyoti × Kashi Divya) and, 4.89 (Kashi Jyoti × Pusa Supriya) to 2.01 kg (Ken Swadisht × Kashi Divya) for spring-summer and rainy season, respectively. Overall, the differential performance of the genotypes and crosses across seasons indicates substantial phenotypic variability for fruit yield per plant and suggests a possible influence of genotype × environment interaction on the expression of this trait. For yield per hectare, significant differences observed among the parental genotypes and their cross combinations in both seasons, indicating considerable genetic variability for this trait. The highest yield per hectare was recorded by Pusa Supriya (165.64 q/ha) and Panjab Nikhar (176.45 q/ha) while lowest Kashi Shreya (110.48 q/ha) and Kashi Kalyani (112.53 q/ha) among parents meanwhile in hybrids, Ken Swadisht × Kashi Jyoti (198.55 q/ha) and Kashi Jyoti × Pusa Supriya (244.64 q/ha) exhibited highest yield per hectare whereas Kashi Vandana × Kashi Shreya (82.68 q/ha) and Ken Swadisht × Kashi Divya (100.28 q/ha) lowest for both sub-sequenced seasons. for earliness trait, (Kashi Shreya × Kashi Divya) in both season and Ken Swadisht × Pusa Supriya in rainy season produce early yield. For total yield per hectare, (Ken Swadisht × Kashi Jyoti) for spring-summer season and Kashi Jyoti × Pusa Supriya in rainy sesason, were the most promising hybrids. These hybrids can be recommended for cultivation in norther plains to catch early crop and maximum production. Similar result for superiority of hybrids conferred by Islam et al. (2008) [4] , Singh et al. (2009) [7] , Chauhan et al. (2018) [3] , Bhardwaj and Kumar (2021) [2] and Khairiya et al. (2023) [5] in sponge gourd, Srakar et al. (2015) [6] in ridge gourd.

Acknowledgement

AcknowledgementThe author is thankful to Department of vegetable science, Banda University of Agriculture & Technology, Banda for facilitated with field and laboratory facilities for successful completion of this research work.

References

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