PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS AND COMBINING ABILITY STUDIES IN BITTER GOURD (MOMORDICA CHARANTIA L.)

Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) which is popularly known as bitter cucumber, bitter melon or karela is one of the vegetables belonging to cucurbitaceae family.A potential source of iron and popular for its anti-diabetic property due to the presence of charantin.Despite the crop potential, economic and its medicinal use the present study was undertaken during Rabi season of 2022-23 at Kittur Rani Chennamma College of Horticulture, Arabhavi, Belagavi, Karnataka using nine lines and three testers to develop 27 F 1 hybrids in L T (Line Tester) pattern.Evaluation of hybrids along with their parents revealed that Jonpuri, Katahi Vaibhav and HUB-1 were found to be good general combiners for traits under study.The cross combinations HUB-1 Co-1, HUB-1 White Long and Katahi Vaibhav White Long showed highest SCA effect which were supercilious for earliness, yield and quality parameters resulting as best hybrids.Based on its yield potential and favoured earliness characteristics, the gynoecious HUB-1 Co-1 hybrid was chosen as the best hybrid out of 27 cross combinations, with a yield of 18.38 t/ha.The hybrids Jonpuri White Long and HUB-1 Co-1 expressed superior quality parameters like beta-carotene, ascorbic acid and iron content.The gynoecious based hybrid HUB-1 Co-1 showed resistant reactions for virus and fruit fly infestation, which further can be used in resistant breeding programme.All the characters studied exhibited non-additive gene interaction.So, hybridization, recurrent selection and marker assisted selection can be used to improve these traits.Hence the best hybrids are recommended for commercial exploitation of heterosis.