Evaluation of yield and Biochemical Traits of Bottle Gourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl] in Different Environment

Bottle gourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.)] is cultivated year-round in the northern plains of India during the summer and rainy seasons, ensuring a continuous supply of fresh fruits in the market. Therefore, better germplasm is required for cultivation across different environments.” Yet, the Indian productivity of bottle gourd is still below its potential, due to poor-yielding and nutritionally inferior cultivars that are not uniformly good across variable environments. The current study was conducted with the aim of assessing the mean performance of bottle gourd genotypes and hybrids for yield and biochemical characters under three variable environments, with the aim of selecting suitable and stable genotypes that could be effectively used in future crop improvement programmes through breeding. The research was carried out at the Vegetable Research Farm, Department of Horticulture (Vegetable and Floriculture), Bihar Agricultural College, Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur (Bihar) in the year 2022. Six genetically dissimilar parental genotypes were chosen to be hybridized. The total yield of fruits per plot in F1 hybrids varied with their mean values of 56.43, 51.70, 46.12 and 51.42 in E1, E2, E3 and pooled, respectively. Taking the yield and quality characters into account simultaneously, PN × BG-65, NJ × PN, NJ × BG-65, RBG × BG-23, and BG-21-2 × PN were the best F₁ hybrids since they performed better than the check variety (Kashi Ganga) in all environments. These hybrids have high potential to be grown in the commercial sector and used in bottle gourd breeding schemes.