This document provides information on the spine gourd plant. It discusses the botanical name, family, uses, distribution, description, propagation methods, varieties, cultivation practices, flowering, and harvesting of spine gourd. Key details include that it is a perennial vine native to India with medicinal properties in its fruits and roots. Common propagation methods are through seeds, tubers, and stem cuttings. Varieties mentioned are Indira Kankad 1 and Arka Neelachal Sree.

2. SPINE GOURD

3. Introduction
 Common name: Bristly Balsam Pear, Prickly
Carolaho, Teasle gourd, Kantola
 Botanical name: Momordica dioica
 Family: Cucurbitaceae
 Chromosome no: 2n=28
 Spine gourd is a perennial, dioecious cucurbit
found growing wild in forest areas.
 It is often cultivated for its fruits which are used
as a vegetable.
 Fruits of spine gourd are available from July to
Sept.-Oct. in North India

4. Uses
 Fruits and other plant parts posses several
medicinal properties.
 Roots are applied in bleeding piles, bowels and
urinary complaints.
 The root is pasted and applied over the body of a
sedative in fevers.

5. Origin and distribution
 Spine gourd is probably native of India, Plants are
distributed from Himalayas to Sri Lanka; up to an
altitude of 1500 m.
 Plants of spine gourd are found naturally growing in
hilly tracts of Rajmahal, Hazaribagh and Rajgir of
Jharkhand and in wet hills of Maharashtra, Assam and
W. Bengal (Rathi et al.,2002).

6. Botanical description
 Spine gourd belongs to the genus Momordica and species
dioica Roxb. ex Willd.
 Its chromosome number (2n) is 28.
 It is a dioecious climber, stem glabrous, leaves broadly
ovate, entire, deeply 3-5 lobed; flowers solitary, yellow, fruits
ovoid or ellipsoidal, 2.5-6.3 cm long, shortly beaked, densely
echinate with soft spines; seeds slightly compressed, 6.0-7.0
mm long, irregularly corrugated.

7. Medicinal values
 Possess hypoglycemic, Hepatoma protective, gastro protective ulcer
healing activities, analgesic, expectorant, nematocidal, antiallergic,
antimalarial, antifeedant, antibacterial and antifungal activity

8. Soil and climate
 Spine gourd is a plant of warm season
 For prolific growth of vine, high humidity and 25-30°C temperature are required.
 It can successfully be raised in area where average rainfall is 150-250 cm.
 Plants of spine gourd remain in dormant conditions during winter months.
 Being a hardy crop, it can be grown in different kinds of soil; however, sandy soil
rich in organic matter with provision of good drainage are considered ideal.
 Soil pH should be in range of between 6 and 7.
 Before planting, field should be deeply ploughed 3-4 times and thereafter
harrowing is done to remove the pieces of perennial weeds.

9. Propagation
 Spine gourd is propagated by seed as well as by vegetative means.
Seed propagation
 Seeds of spine gourd rest in dormant conditions, hence, freshly extracted seeds
should not be sown for 5-6 months.
 Seed dipping in tap water for 24 h before sowing stimulates germination process.
 Ali et al. (1991) observed enhanced germination of spine gourd seeds at 30°C but
not at 20 or 25°C, when the seed coat was removed.
 There was no effect of gibberellic acid on germination of the intact seeds.
 The major problem of seed propagation is 1:1 ratio of male and female plants and
delay in fruiting.

10. By tubers
 Tuberous roots do not have dormancy and plants raised through tubers are healthy.
 Tubers are obtained from 2- 3 years old plant and 80-120 g pieces are made for
planting.
 Every planting piece of tubes must have at least 2 buds for sprouting.
 Panda et al. (1994) obtained enhanced sprouting of tuberous root cuttings (87.5%)
following dipping in 1 percent thiourea whereas untreated tubers had only 18.3 per
cent sprouting.
 Planting may be done in month of early Sept.-Oct. or Feb-March. Ram et al. (2002)
reported the best time for planting tubers is February under irrigated conditions and
June-July in rainy season.
 Tuberous roots are planted at spacing of 3 m intervals.

11. By stem cuttings
 For raising plants through this method, cuttings are made from
terminal portions, however, Sahu et al. (1995) did not observe any
significant effects due to type of cutting (basal or terminal).
 The number of nodes did not influence percentage rooting.
 Tripathy et al. (1993) reported that terminal cutting produced more
nodes per plant and leaves, leaf area and inter nodal length than
basal cuttings.
 Ahmad et al. (1992) obtained highest percentage of rooting (93) and
number of roots per cutting (17) by cut tings comprising one
auxiliary bud and a mature diploid leaf treated 5 s in 1500 ppm IBA
and planted in a mixture of soil: sand: compost (1:2:1).

12. Grafting
 Spine gourd was grafted on rootstocks of Cucurbita moschata, C
trifolia or F1 hybrids of C. maxima x C. moschata.
 Control of M. dioica was grown on their own roots.
 Physiological measurements were made for mature leaves between
5th and 9th nodes under irradiances of 0, 50, 100, 200, 500, 700,
900, and 1200 and 1500 (natural solar irradiation) µ mol m-2, s-1 at
283°C and 45% RH.
 The net photo synthetic rate, transpiration rate, stomatal
conductance and intercellular CO2, concentrations were similar for
grafted and control plants in response to irradiance.
 In grafted plants, total DM production was 2-3 times higher than in
control at both vegetative and flowering stage of growth.
 The root stocks had marked influence on scion (Mian et al., 1992).

14. Varieties
Indira Kankad 1
 Spine gourd genotype RMF 37 identified as variety
“Indira Kakoda 1” by Central Variety Release
committee (CVRC) for 5 states i.e. Chhattisgarh,
Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Maharashtra.
 It is resistant to all major pests, green fruit are
attractive dark, green and contain 12-14 % protein.
 Its fruits are dark green colored. It yields 0.8-1.0
q/ha during 1st year, 1.0-1.5 q/ha in 2nd year and
1.5–2.0 t/ha in third year after planting.

15. Arka Neelachal Sree
 Developed through clonal selection at CHES,
Bhubaneswar.
 High yield (4–5 kg/ plant) and high market preference.
Its vines are thin and spreading which grows well on 3-
line wire-trellis system
 Moderately resistant to anthracnose and downy mildew in
fields, and moderately susceptible to angular leaf blight
and pumpkin caterpillar

16. Manures and fertilizers
 Recommendations based on experimental basis of nutrient
requirements of spine gourd are not available.
 In general, 200-250 quintals per hectare FYM are mixed in soil at
the time of field preparation.
 During the March April, 20-30 g urea per plant is applied and the
same amount is repeated at the time of fruit formation.
 Tripathy et al. (1993) recommended 30 kg per hectare each of N, P
and K for higher yield and fruit size.
 K rates had no effect on fruit ascorbic acid content but this was
highest when P was applied @ 40 kg P205 per hectare.

17. Intercultural operations
 Just after planting, a light irrigation is required for proper establishment of
cuttings.
 During summer months, frequent watering is desired.
 In rainy season, care should be taken for proper drainage as plant is quite
sensitive to waterlogged conditions.
 During early stage of vine growth, 2-3 hand weeding may be followed to
reduce the infesting weed population.
 Crop of spine gourds does well on bushes or hedges.
 For staking of the vines, bower may be made at height of 4-5 feet above the
ground.
 Training must be started just after 30 cm of vine length from the ground level.

18. Anthesis
 In spine gourd both staminate and pistillate flowers borne solitary and have light
yellow color.
 Pistillate and staminate buds took 9 and 11 days, respectively to reach anthesis.
Anthesis in both types of flowers commenced at 19.00 h and completed by 20.00
h with a peak at 19.40 h.
 Dehiscence began at 18.00 and continued up to 19.00 h with a peak at 18.40 h.
 Pollen viability was 97.88 per cent initially and then decreased with increasing
room temperature and RH.
 Stigma was receptive from 12 h before and 18 h after anthesis with peak at a time
of anthesis (Shikhalia et al., 1990).
 Islam and Khan (1998) also observed decreased pollen grain viability with
increasing duration of storage.

19. PGR for sex expression
 Foliar spray with 400 ppm AgNO3, at the pre-flowering stage
induced 70 -90 per cent hermaphrodite flowers on strictly
gynoecious vines, whereas androecious vines were insensitive to
AgNO3, treatments. (Rajput et al., 1994).
 Hossain et al. (1996) also reported that application of 200-800
mg/litre AgNO3, to the female spine gourd was effective in inducing
hermaphrodite flowers.
 Pollen grain viability of the hermaphrodite flowers was as high as
that of normal male flowers.

20. Parthenocarpy
 A high parthenocarpic fruit set (70%) was observed in an inter-
specific hybrid between M. dioica and M. cochinchinensis when the
F1 was pollinated with pollen from M. cochinchinensis. –Bharathi
et al. (2012)Induction of parthenocarpy in M. dioica with pollen of
related taxa (M. charantia and Lagenaria leucantha) and mixture of
the pollens from these two species. - Singh (1978)
 The parthenocarpic fruit setting was higher with the stimulus of
extraneous pollen (66% against 36%), compared to natural
pollination Parthenocarpy

21. Harvesting
 In spine gourd fruits take 25-27 days to reach maturity.
 Marketable fruits are obtained 12 days after fruit set.
 Green fruits at proper stage of maturity should be harvested.
 Delay in harvesting causes yellowing of fruits.
 Colour of the pedicel, pericarp and spine remain green until 12-13
days after flowering and thereafter the colour changes.
 Mili et al. (2006) suggested that pedicel colour, spine colour, specific
gravity, respiration rate, chlorophyll content and dry weight may be
considered as the suitable maturity indices of spine gourd.
 Harvesting is done at frequent interval. A good crop of spine gourd
yields 75-100 quintals fruit per hectare

23. Genetic resources
 Being a minor crop, very less attention have been paid toward its collection,
documentation and utilization in improvement programme.
 Ram et al. (2002) reported that eight collections of spine gourd were evaluated
at the IIVR, Varanasi.
 Maharana et al. (1995a) collected 34 genotypes of spine gourd at
Bhubaneswar (Orissa) and generated information on variability and heritability
in respect of internodal length, petiole length, leaf area, fruit weight, total
number of fruits per plant and yield per plant.
 Mishra and Sahu (1983) reported that wild form of spine gourd which occurs
in Bihar, Maharashtra and Rajasthan is diploid with a chromosome number of
2n=28; the form that grows in Assam is tetraploid with 2n=56. Compared with
the diploid, the tetraploid has larger leaves, flowers and fruits and is more
vigorous and earlier. The flowers of the tetraploid open in the morning, those
of the diploid at night.