Evaluation of bitter gourd Hybrids

The experiment was conducted at the Department of vegetable science, College of Horticulture, Vellanikkara, Kerala Agricultural University during the year 2016–2017 to evaluate the performance of bitter gourd hybrids. The experimental material comprised of 16 hybrids and 5 check varieties collected from public (IARI, New Delhi and KAU, Thrissur) and private sectors. Observations were recorded for 14 characters and ranking of hybrids was done based on cumulative index worked out for the characters like, nodes to 1^st female flower appearance, days to 1^st picking, fruit weight (g), fruit length (cm), fruit diameter (cm), relative early yield (kg), yield/plant (kg) and number of fruits per plant. Significant difference was observed among the hybrids for the selected characters. Promising 5 F1 hybrids selected based on the cumulative index were MC-142, MC-136, MC-139, MC-138 and MC-133.