Combining ability studies in bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl.)

Line x Tester study was conducted in bottle gourd during summer and kharif 2008 at Zonal Agriculture Research Station, Chhindwara, centre of Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Jabalpur. It is observed that the estimates of specific combining ability variances were higher in magnitude than general combining ability variances for all the characters, indicated that the predominance of nonadditive type of gene action. The estimate of general combining ability effects showed that JBG 9 was a good general combiner for all the characters except for days to appearance of first male flower, number of female flowers per plant, fruit setting percent. Estimates of specific combining abilityeffects revealed that five crossed viz., JBG4 x T1 (Pusa Naveen), JBG6 x T1 (Pusa Naveen), JBG9 x T1 (Pusa Naveen), JBG5 x T3 (PSPL) and JBG11 x T3 (PSPL) were the best specific combiners for yield and major yield components.