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Correlation and Path Analysis for Yield and Yield Components in Pointed Gourd (Trichosanthes dioica Roxb.)

Pointed gourd (Trichosanthes dioica Roxb.), commonly known as parwal is one of the most important cucurbitaceous vegetable in India. It is a perennial and dioecious vegetable grown as vine with a pencil thickness stem. It is widely cultivated in Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Uttar Pradesh. Recently, it has been introduced in and around Hyderabad and Bangalore. The fruit is the edible part of the plant, which is cooked in various ways either alone or in combinations with other vegetables or meats. The fruits are easily digestible and diuretic in nature. Pointed gourd is rich in vitamin and minerals and contains 9.0 mg Mg, 2.6 mg Na, 83.0 mg K, 1.1 mg Cu and 17 mg S per 100 g edible part. Being rich in protein and vitamin A, it has certain medicinal properties and many reports are available regarding its role in circulatory system, especially in lowering total cholesterol and blood sugar (Chandrasekar et al., 1988 and Sharma et al., 1988).


Introduction
Pointed gourd (Trichosanthes dioica Roxb.), commonly known as parwal is one of the most important cucurbitaceous vegetable in India. It is a perennial and dioecious vegetable grown as vine with a pencil thickness stem. It is widely cultivated in Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Uttar Pradesh. Recently, it has been introduced in and around Hyderabad and Bangalore. The fruit is the edible part of the plant, which is cooked in various ways either alone or in combinations with other vegetables or meats. The fruits are easily digestible and diuretic in nature. Pointed gourd is rich in vitamin and minerals and contains 9.0 mg Mg, 2.6 mg Na, 83.0 mg K, 1.1 mg Cu and 17 mg S per 100 g edible part. Being rich in protein and vitamin A, it has certain medicinal properties and many reports are available regarding its role in circulatory system, especially in lowering total cholesterol and blood sugar (Chandrasekar et al., 1988 andSharma et al., 1988).
Yield is a complex character which is highly influenced by environment, hence selection based on yield alone may limit the improvement, whereas yield component characters are less complex in inheritance and influenced by the environment to a lesser extent. Thus, effective improvement in yield may be brought about through selection of various yield component characters, which show association among themselves and also with yield. Plant breeder has to find simple correlation and the extent of direct and indirect effects of attributes with seed yield that could be useful to predict superior cross combinations and to identify traits for ideal plant type and aid in indirect selection. Thus, the present investigation was undertaken with the view to estimate character association and direct and indirect effects in pointed gourd.

Materials and Methods
The present study was conducted at the College of Horticulture, Venkataramannagudem, and West Godavari District India during Kharif season of 2016. The location falls under the Agro-climatic zone no.10, East Coast Plain and Hills (Krishna-Godavari zone) with an average rainfall of 900 mm at an altitude of 34 m (112 feet) above mean sea level. Its geographical position is 16.83 0 N latitude and 81.5°E longitude. It experiences hot humid summer and mild winters. The treatment comprised of twenty two genotypes of pointed gourd. Twenty two pointed gourd genotypes were collected from Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand (Table 1). The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Block Design (RBD) with three replications. Recommended cultural practices were followed through the growth period to raise a good crop.
Pits of size 50 x 50 x 30 cm were dug and filled with soil, cow dung and sand mixed in equal proportion Manures and fertilizers were applied as per recommendation of Rashid (1993) N, P 2 O 5 and K 2 O (62.10 kg, 86.40kg and 60 kg) were applied in the form of Urea, Single Super Phosphate (SSP) and Muriate of Potash (MOP). All the cultural practices were followed in order with almost care and attention. The observations were recorded on main vine length, number of nodes per vine, internodal length, days to opening of first male flower appeared, days to opening of first female flower appeared, node at which first male flower appeared, node at which first female flower appeared, days to first harvest, fruit length, fruit breadth, fruit weight, pulp weight per fruit, pulp seed ratio, number of fruits per plant, fruit yield, number of seeds per fruit and seed weight per fruit.

Results and Discussion
Correlation studies showed that for most of the characters, genotypic correlation was higher than the corresponding phenotypic correlation (Table 1). This could be interpreted on the basis that there was a strong inherent genotypic relationship between the characters under study, but their phenotypic expression was impeded by the influences of environmental factors. The correlation coefficient at both genotypic and phenotypic levels indicated that fruit yield per plant was significantly and positively correlated with number of nodes per vine, fruit length, fruit weight, pulp weight per fruit, pulp seed ratio, number of fruits per plant at both genotypic and phenotypic level. Similar results were also reported by Singh et al., (1993), Sarkar et al., (1999), Dora et al., (2002), Singh et al., (2007) and Khan et al., (2009) in pointed gourd. Negative and significant correlation of fruit yield per plant was observed with days to opening of first female flower, node at which first male flower, node at which first female flower, days to first harvest, main vine length, internodal length at both genotypic and phenotypic level (Figs. 1 and 2).
The path analysis (Table 2) indicated that number of fruits per plant, nodes per vine, internodal length, node at which first male flower appeared, days to first harvest and pulp weight per fruit had direct positive effects on fruit yield (t/ha) at phenotypic and genotypic levels.   Fig.2 Phenotypic path diagram representing direct and indirect effects for fruit yield (t/ha) of pointed gourd effects for fruit yield (t/ha) of pointed gourd Based on the results of path analysis, the present study revealed that major emphasis should be laid on number of fruits per plant, number of nodes per vine, internodal length and pulp weight per fruit, and there should be economic balance among these traits to get higher fruit yield.
Therefore, effective selection could be made based on these characters for improvement of fruit yield in pointed gourd.
Corroborating the findings of present investigation positive and direct effect on fruit yield per plant has also been reported by Singh and Prasad (1989), Singh et al., (1993) in pointed gourd and by  in bitter gourd.