Hermaphroditism: A primitive sex form for improving plant architecture, earliness and yield traits in monoecious ridge gourd (Luffa acutangula Roxb.)

The present experiment was carried out to evaluate the breeding value of Satputia inbreds and to formulate suitable breeding strategies following 7 × 7 half-diallel mating design for genetic improvement of ridge gourd (Luffa acutangula Roxb.). Twenty-one F1 hybrids along with seven parental lines, including two hermaphrodite inbreds, were evaluated in randomized block design with three replications. The highly significant mean squares due to parents, hybrids and parents versus hybrids for all the eleven traits studied indicate the presence of sufficient amount of genetic variation. Prevalence of additive genetic variance indicates the usefulness of hybridization followed by selection approaches for plant stature and earliness parameters, while heterosis breeding would be suitable to improve yield potential as indicated by predominance of non-additive genetic variance. Plant stature and earliness are peculiar traits of hermaphrodite ridge gourd which is inherited in its progenies. The parents DRG-2, Satputia Long and Satputia Small were good combiners for a number of characters, including yield/plant. Ten crosses having hermaphrodite inbred as one of the parents, excelled for high per se performance along with desirable specific combining ability effects. The present findings reveal the breeding value and potentiality of hermaphrodite Satputia lines in the genetic improvement for "ideal plant type" in ridge gourd. © 2013 The National Academy of Sciences, India.