DEVELOPMENT TOWARDS SEEDLESS POINTED GOURD (Trichosanthes dioica)

Abstract

The experiment was conducted with ten female and one male parental lines at the Horticultural farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka-1207 during the period of October, 2007 to August. 2008 to develop the seedless pointed gourd (Tricho.canthes dioica Roxb. 2n=22). The parent PG 007 was found to be the best performer for its number of vine per plant as vegetative trait and fruit width, fruit weight, number of fruit per plant and yield per plant as generative traits. The parent PG 010 was the best performer for vine length and PG 015 was the best for number of fruit per vine. The entry PG 007 was the best parent for the lowest number of seeds per fruit Whereas for average number of vine per plant and pulp: seed ratio, the PG 010 was found to be superior. The entry PG 002 was the superior for the average number of vine length and PG 002 for first harvest and for first flower bearing node number counted from the bottom. Ten different genotypes to be involved for seedless pointed gourd production program namely PG 002, PG 003. PG 004, PG 007, PG 010, PG 015. PG 016, PG 017, PG 018 and PG 027 were treated with the different concentration of aqueous solution of colchicine varying from 0.1 %. 0.5 % and I % by following two application methods namely as application of using soaking cotton wool plug placed on the apical bud and the other one was the direct injection method. No swollen shoots were persisted and the colchicine treated character for chromosomal doubling did no longer exist. As a result the seedless pointed gourd could not be produced. However between the two application methods I % colchicine showed 40-60 % effectiveness by cotton plug method while the injection method showed 2040 % effectiveness which was again showed similarity with the 0.5 % and 0.1 % solution used by cotton plug method with few exceptions.