Heterosis studies in ridge gourd

In a field experiment with 45 hybrids in ridge gourd, heterosis over better and top parents were estimated for eight traits. The heterosis exhibited for fruit characters and fruit yield was mostly positive, while vine length and flowering showed negative heterosis. The three best performing F1 hybrids for yield were DRG-1 × P.N., DRG-1 × PRG-7 and DRG-1 × AAUJ-3 and manifested 93.09, 68.51 and 66.50 per cent heterosis over top parent (DRG-1), respectively. These hybrids also recorded the maximum fruit weight, fruit length and highest number of fruits per plant and could be considered for commercial cultivation.