STUDIES ON VARIABILITY, HERITABILITY AND GENETIC ADVANCE FOR YIELD AND IT’S CONTRIBUTING TRAITS IN BOTTLE GOURD (LAGENARIA SICERARIA (MOL.) STANDL.)Budhesh Pratap Singh, Ram Batuk Singh, Pratyksh Pandey, Namrata Kashyap, Sandeep Kumar5, Aman Mishra and Lalit YadavAbstract Genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance were studied at genotypic and phenotypic levels in 100 treatments (10 parents + 45 F1s and 45 F2s) of bottle gourd for sixteen qualitative and quantitative traits during zaid 2021. The experimental design which is used to conduct the experiment was randomized block design. In F1, the mean sum of squares of genotypes were observed highly significant differences among the treatments for days to first staminate flower anthesis, days to first pistillate flower, node number to first staminate flower appears, node number to first pistillate flower appears, ratio of pistillate: staminate flowers, internodal length (cm), vine length at last picking stage (m), number of primary branches per plant, average weight per fruit (kg), number of fruits per plant, fruit length (cm), total soluble solids (TSS) 0Brix, specific gravity of fruits (g/cc), dry matter content (%) and fruit yield per plant (kg). In case of F2, highly significant differences were recorded among the treatments, parents, F2s and parent vs F2 for all the characters except Specific gravity of fruits for the treatments and F2s while for days to first staminate flower anthesis, days to first pistillate flower, Internodal length, days to first fruit harvest and number of fruit /plant. The result of phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) were higher than genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) for all the characters. In case of F s, the highest genotypic as well as phenotypic coefficient of variation were observed in the ratio of pistillate : staminate flowers followed by number of fruits per plant, average weight per fruit, fruit yield per plant, while lowest genotypic as well as phenotypic coefficient of variation were observed in specific gravity of fruits (g/cc)In case of F2s, the highest genotypic as well as phenotypic coefficient of variation were observed in the fruit diameter followed by ratio of pistillate :staminate flowers followed by number of fruits per plant, average weight per fruit, fruit yield per plant, while lowest genotypic as well as phenotypic coefficient of variation were observed in days to first fruit harvest. Heritability result showed for different traits in the F1 high estimate of heritability in broad sense was recorded for ratio of pistillate: staminate flowers, number of fruits per plant, average weight per fruit (kg), fruit yield per plant and fruit length while in F2 for ratio of pistillate: staminate flowers, number of fruits per plant. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance in percent of mean were observed for Ratio of pistillate: staminate flower, No. of fruit/ plant, Average weight per fruit (kg), followed by Fruit yield /plant per plant(kg) while in F2 Ratio of pistillate: staminate flower, No. of fruit /plant, fruit length, Fruit yield /plant per plant(kg) showed high heritability coupled with high genetic advance in percent over mean. |