Combining ability analysis in bottle gourd

A half diallel set of eight bottle gourd genotypes was carried out to evaluate general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) for fruit yield and its component characters. Variance due to general and specific combining ability were highly significant for all the characters except SCA for days to first male and female flower and days to first and last fruit picking. This indicated that both additive and non-additive genetic variance were important for inheritance of fruit yield and its components. The ratio of GCA:SCA was greater than unity for most of the traits studied indicating the importance of additive genetic variance in the inheritance of these traits. The best genotype identified on the basis of general combining ability (GCA) effects for fruit yield per plant and its most of the contributing characters was ABG-1 followed by Bhagirathi. Similarly, the best hybrids on the basis of specific combining ability (SCA) effects for fruit yield per plant and two to three of its component traits was ABG-1 × VR-2 followed by ABG-1 × Bhagirathi; ABG-1 × JBOGL-01-6; JBOGL-01-6 × Bhagirathi and NDBG-104 × Bhagirathi.