Mean performance of gynoecious cucumber hybrids in sub-tropical climate of eastern India

Abstract

A field study was conducted in zaid season of 2019 to investigate the mean performance of 27 diverse genotypes (5 parents, 20 F₁ crosses and 2 standard checks) of cucumber for earliness, growth and yield attributing traits following full diallel mating design by utilizing two gynoecious lines, two monoecious lines and one parthenocarpic gynoecious line. Analysis of variance in randomized block design suggested that there were significant differences among the genotypes for 10 quantitative traits out of 13 traits used in the study. Results showed that gynoecious hybrids (involving both gynoecious parents) expressed earliness for flowering and fruiting, i.e., took minimum days to first female flower anthesis, node to first female flower, and days to first fruit harvest. The result of the present study showed that hybrid BRPCU-8 × BRGCU-4 was found to be better for earliness related traits viz., days to first flowering, first fruit harvest, and node to first female flower. Hybrid BRCU-10 × BRCU-1 was the better performer for fruit morphological traits viz., fruit length, fruits per plant, average fruit weight and yield-related traits; hybrid BRCU-1 × BRPCU-8 was superior for vegetative growth traits, namely crop duration and vine length. Monoecious cucumber hybrids involving both monoecious parents such as Punjab Naveen × BRCU-1 outperformed gynoecious hybrids involving gynoecious parents for growth characteristics such as vine length and crop duration. Overall, hybrid BRGCU-10 × BRCU-1 was observed as the best genotype.