Author(s):

Chaudhari DJ, Acharya RR, Patel JN, Gohil SB and Bhalala KC

Abstract: Forty genotypes of pumpkin were evaluated to measure the variability among the genotypes for several characters, estimate genetic parameter, association among the character and their contribution to yield. There was a deal of significant variation for all the characters among the genotypes. High variability was observed in fruit yield per plant, first male flowering node, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight, flesh thickness, number of seeds per fruit and the quality parameter like total soluble solids, total sugar content and ß-carotene. All the character except days to opening first female flower and polar circumferences of fruit showed high heritability along with high genetic advance in per cent of mean. The positive and strong association of number of fruits per plant (rg = 0.898 and rp = 0.878), fruit weight (rg = 0.943 and rp = 0.875), flesh thickness (rg = 0.961 and rp = 0.915), polar circumferences of fruit (rg = 0.533 and rp = 0.377), equatorial circumferences of fruit (rg = 0.677 and rp = 0.514) and total soluble solids (rg = 0.378 and rp = 0.329) with fruit yield per plant revealed that the importance of this characters in determining the fruit yield per plant. On other hand, days to opening first female flower (rg = -0.243) was negatively and significantly correlated with fruit yield per plant. The path co-efficient analysis revealed that the highest positive direct effect was recorded in case of fruit weight (0.574) followed by number of fruits per plant (0.292) and flesh thickness (0.189). On other hand, the highest negative direct effect was recorded by equatorial circumferences of fruit (-0.003), but its indirect effect through fruit weight (0.434) was very high in magnitude and positive in direction. Overall, the result indicated that the number of fruits per plant, fruit weight, flesh thickness, polar circumferences of fruit and equatorial circumferences of fruit can be used as useful selection criteria to increase fruit yield per plant in pumpkin.

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