Morphological Diversity for Fruit Characters in Bottle Gourd Germplasm from Tribal Pockets of Telangana Region of Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract

Bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) is a cucurbitaceous vegetable for which India is the secondary center of diversity and endowed with rich variability especially in the fruit characters. The Regional Station of the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), located at Hyderabad, India has conducted several expeditions in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh and collected the available diversity in the bottle gourd germplasm including its cultivated and wild forms. This paper documents the available fruit diversity in the bottle gourd germplasm collected from the tribal communities, viz., Koyas, Gutti Koyas, Lambadas, and other primitive tribal groups living in the Telangana region. The collected germplasm (54 accessions) showed immense variation in the qualitative characters of fruit such as shape, luster, blossom- end, ridges, etc. Wide range of variability was also recorded in the quantitative traits for several fruit and seed characters, viz., fruit length (13.3–83.9 cm), fruit width (7.9– 34.4 cm), fruit circumference (20.5–98.0 cm), seed length (11.3–21.0 mm), seed width (5.8–9.2 mm), seed thickness (2.5–3.7 mm), and 100-seed mass (7.6–31.8 g). Ethnobotanical information pertaining to the utilization of bottle gourd by different tribal groups is also presented. India is endowed with rich variability in bottle gourd germplasm having many shapes and sizes. Hence, an attempt has been made to compile the diversity status of the bottle gourd germplasm from this region. This paper deals with the variability in fruit and seed characters of the germplasm collected from the Telangana region of Andhra