Genetic Variability for Yield and Ts Component Traits in Bitter Gourd: Genetic Divergence and Path Analysis for Yield and Its Contributing Traits in Bitter Gourd (Momordica Charantia L.)

Bitter Gourd(Momordica charantia L.)belong to family Cucurbitaceae. It originated in India(Indo-Burma Centre of origin) It is cultivated in Malaysia, China, Tropical Africa, North and South America. It is monoecious and highly cross pollinated crop in which a large amount of Variation. The fruits are pickled, canned and dehydrated also. The fruits and seeds of bitter gourd posses cooling, appetitising, stomachic, antipyretic, carminative, antiheliminthic, aphrodisiac and vermifuge properties. They have tremendous application for antiviral therapy especially against HIV infection and act as acytostatic in certain cancers. The breeding objectives can be addressed to satisfy the growers and the consumers must be considered in terms of crop improvement and product improvement. The main criteria for crop improvement are yield, earliness, disease resistance, abiotic stress tolerance, uniformity in size and increase in fruiting period. A speedy crop and product improvement can be brought about bitter gourd by assessing the genetic variability. The morphological characterization and assessment of the variability parameters like coefficient of correlation, path coefficient and genetic divergen.