Bitter gourd is native to tropical Asia and is grown for its nutritional and medicinal properties. It is a monoecious annual climber with pentafid calyx and rotate corolla. Flowers are pollinated by honey bees and bumble bees. Breeding objectives include early fruiting, high yield, resistance to pests and diseases. Breeding methods discussed are selection, pedigree, hybridization and mutation breeding. Self-pollination and cross-pollination techniques were described to facilitate the breeding process. Overall, there is potential to improve quality and productivity through focused breeding efforts in bitter gourd.

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2. BREEDING OF BITTERGOURD
“ Floral biology and breeding methods “
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3. INTRODUCTION
 Bitter gourd (momordica charantia L.)
 Balsam pear/ bitter cucumber/ bitter melon
 2n=2x=22
 Grown for its nutritive value and medicinal
propeties.
 Rich in Fe and vitamin - c
 Summer and rainy season crop popular for its
tender fruits
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4. ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION
 Indo-Burma center of origin has been reported by
garrison in 1977
 Native of tropical Asia, particularly eastern India
and southern china(seshadri,1986)
 Grown in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and
Singapore and extensively grown on china,
Japan, south-east Asia, tropical Africa and south
America.
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5. FOOD VALUES USES
 Tender fruits → economic importance
 Green colour of fruits →orange yellow (ripe)
 Fe and vitamin-c rich → 0.61 mg & 88 mg/100g
 Ca-20 mg, P-70 mg and carotene 126 µg
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6. Medicinal values of the
crop
 Curing diabetes (cheratin), asthma, blood disease
and rheumatism.
 Roots and stems of wild bitter gourds are used
ayurvedic medicine.
 Fruits are easily digestible and acts as laxative.
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7. Other uses
 Stored as dry vegetable.
 Cucurbitacin-bitter glucoside-helps in preventing
spoilage of cooked vegetables of bitter gourd.
 cooked vegetable remain fit for consumption for
2-3 days.
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8. Botanical classification
 Kingdom- planate
 Division- magnoliophyta
 Class- magnoliopsida
 Order- cucurbitales
 Family- cucurbitaceae
 Genus- momordica
 Species- charantia
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9. BOTANY
 Genus momordica has following species.
M. charantia (cultivated)
M. charantia var.muricata (highly bitter
and small fruited, wild type)
M. dioica (kakrol, spine gourd)
M. cochinchinensis (sweet gourd of
Assam)
M. balsamina (immature fruits are used
as vegetable or pickle)
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10. Contd………
 Monoecious, annual climber.
 5 angled stem and furrowed
 Tendrils- simple/ forked
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11. Flowers:
Calyx → 5- pentafid
Corolla → rotate, parted,
near to base
Stamens → 5, filaments
free &anthers
fused
Style- → short terminated
by 3 bilobed or
divided stigma
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14. cntd….
 Fruits:
Pendulous, fusiform, ribbed, with tubercles
 Seeds:
brownish
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15. Pollen viability and stigma
receptivity
 Anthesis - 4.00 am to 7.00 am
 Anther dehiscence - 5.00am to 7.30 am
 Stigma is receptive - 24 hours before and
after anthesis (2 days)
 Pollination - Honey bees
bumble bees
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16. Breeding objectives
 Early fruiting
 High female to male ratio
 Thick fruits suitable for stuffing
 Fruit size variation as per consumer
preference
 High yield (no. of fruit & fruit weight)
 Resistance to fruit flies, red pumpkin
beetle and epilachna beetle.
 Resistance to mosaic virus
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17. Genetics of plant & fruit
characters
 Characters gene action
1. Fruit colour green > white-
monogenic
2. Seed colour dark brown > white-
monogenic
3. Seed size small seed > large seed –
monogenic
4. Spines on fruits spiny fruits > smooth both
colour and surface are
independent in inheritance
5. Bitterness in fruits qualitatively inherited
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18. Breeding methods
 Single plant selection
 Mass selection
 Pedigree methods
 Bulk population
 Heterosis breeding
 Mutation breeding
 polyploidy breeding
 Inter-specific hybridization
 Inter-generic hybridization
 Resistance breeding
 Breeding for quality
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19. SELFING
 Cover the mature flower
bud by using paper bag.
 Get the pollen from male
flower of the same plant
and dusted on the stigmatic
surface of the female flower.
 And cover the pollinated
flower by paper bag.
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20. CROSSING
 Female flowers ready
to open in the next day
are covered by paper bag.
 Rubbing the pollens of
desired male flowers to
stigma of female flowers.
 Cover the crossed flowers
by butter paper bag for
few days.
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21. CONCLUSION
 Very little attention was given to improve the
quality and productivity of this crop
 Breeding for self staked varieties which are high
yielding and early bearing are a few of the
objectives in bitter gourd improvement.
 There is a great scope to exploit heterosis in this
crop.
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