This document provides information on the sweet gourd plant. It is a perennial vine native to Asia and Africa. The sweet gourd has high nutritional value with protein, vitamin C, and edible flesh. It can be propagated through seeds, tubers, or stem cuttings. The sweet gourd grows best in warm, humid climates with adequate drainage. Pests and diseases that affect the sweet gourd include anthracnose, downy mildew, powdery mildew, epilachna beetle, and fruit fly. Genetic resources are being collected and evaluated to improve yield and other traits of this underutilized crop.

2. SWEET GOURD

3. INTRODUCTION
• Botanical name: Momordica cochinchinensis
• Family: Cucurbitaceae
• Chromosome no: 2n=18
• Common names: Hindi- Gulkakra, English- Giant spine gourd,
elephant bitter gourd.
• Sweet gourd is an underutilized vegetable with high nutritional
value.
• It has high protein and vitamin C content and greater proportion
of edible flesh than bitter gourd.

4. NUTRITIVE VALUES
• Moisture- 84.09 g
• Protein- 2.61 g
• Fat – 0.66 g
• Carbohydrates- 5.69 g
• Cruse fiber- 5.93 g
• Calcium – 21 mg
• Phosphorus- 148 mg
• Iron- 2.59 mg

5. ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION
• Native of old world.
• It comprises of 45 species, mainly occurring in Africa, 6-7 species have
been recorded in India.
• It is found in Assam the Garo hills of Meghalaya, west Bengal most of
South India and the Andaman islands.

6. BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION
• Dioecious perennial climber with tuberous root.
• Stem glabrous; leaves sub orbicular, deeply 3 to 5 lobed.
• Flowers white or pale yellow but blackish at base inside.
• Male flowers with peduncle 5-30 cm long, bearing an apical, sub orbicular, sessile
bract, 3-4 cm and 4-5 cm; pedicel 3-10 mm long.
• Female flowers with much smaller bracts, situated near the middle of the peduncle.
• Fruit ovoid, 10-15 cm long, pointed, densely aculeate; turning red at maturity; seed
ovoid, 26-28 m

8. CLIMATE AND SOIL
• Warm humid climate with 25-35°C and average annual rainfall of 1500 2500 mm is ideally
suited for cultivating the sweet gourd.
• Vines of sweet gourd remain dormant during winter season and sprouts with onset of
spring.
• It a hardy crop and can be grown in different kinds of soil. However, fertile sandy loam soil
with pH range from 6.5 to 7.0 is considered ideal.
• There should be adequate provision of drainage as crop is very to water logged conditions.

9. PROPAGATION
• Sweet gourd can be propagated by seeds, tuber or by stem cuttings.
• Seed propagation: About 3.5 kg seeds are required for a hectare sowing.
• Seeds have a long period of dormancy and low germination (50 per cent) (Mishra et al.,
1988).
• Further, a plant raised from seed gives fruits only after 3-4 years. Vijay (1978) also counted
48.7 per cent female and 51.3 per cent male plants in seed propagated population.
• It is therefore, recommended that tubers from female plants should be selected and inter
planted with male tubers in proportion of 1:9 ratio

10. BY TUBEROUS ROOTS
• About 50,000 sprouted tubers are required for planting of a hectare field.
• Tuberous roots can be obtained from 2 3 year old plants.
• Due to dioecious nature of crop, planting materials of male and female plant should be
collected separately, which can be identified by flowering and fruits. Average size of planting
tuber pieces is 25-50 g.
• For enough planning material large tubers should be cut into pieces, keeping at least two buds
in each piece.
• The cut tubers must be treated with 0.2% Dithane M. 45 and Seradix B No. 1 powder and keep
in shade for 30 minutes.

11. BY STEM CUTTING
• Stem cutting possessing two nodes are made for multiplication.
• Treating the cuttings with 200-500 ppm IBA accelerate the sprouting as
well as rooting in cuttings.
• July-August is best month in North India for propagation through vine
cuttings.
• When sprouted cuttings attain 4-5 eaves, they are planted in the main field.

12. TIME AND METHOD OF PLANTING
• For planting of tuberous root, field should be free from water logging.
• The best time for planting is February under irrigated conditions and June-July in rainy
season.
• Proper moisture is maintained for sprouting of the tubers.
• Well sprouted and rooted cutting of 40-50 days old are transferred in main field.
• Basins of 45 cm x 45 cm are prepared for direct planning of tuberous cuttings and each pit
should be filled with 150 g single super phosphate and 50 g murate of potash

13. VARIETY
• Teasel gourd Arka Neelachal Gaurav
• Developed through clonal selection at CHES, Bhuvaneshwar.
• Plants are vigorous with dark- green foliage, strong vine and fairly long growing period.
• Dark green and oval fruits along with small spines. Fruits 6 cm long, 3.8 cm thick. Average
weight of fruit is 50 g.
• Plants produces 230-250 fruits in full cropping season with assured pollination. Shows
moderate resistance to pumpkin caterpillar infestation and moderate susceptibility to
anthracnose and downy mildew diseases in the field.

14. MANURES AND FERTILIZERS
• Sweet gourd is a perennial crop; hence planting should be done in field
which is rich in organic carbon.
• For proper establishment and growth of vine, apply 10-12 tones farmyard
manure or well rotten cow dung at the time of field preparation.
• In addition, 100-120 kg nitrogen, 60 kg P2O5, and 50 kg K2O should be
given every year. Nitrogen should be given in two split doses.
• Sprouted cuttings planted in basin when they attain 4-5 leaf stage
approximately 30-35 days after planning are top dressed with 15 g of urea.

15. INTERCULTURAL OPERATION AND
TRAINING
• During the early stage of growth, weeds are removed from basin and light hoeing is given
for proper aeration to root zone.
• Proper staking of the vines promotes growth and facilitates in harvesting of fruits.
• Bower may be made at the height of 5 ft placing cemented poles or bamboo poles followed
by criss-cross wire netting.
• Training on bower must be started at early stage of vine growth.
• Vines spread on bower ex press full growth and also yield quality fruits.
• Puzari (1994) reported that ethrel and gibberellic acid application improved the fruit quality.

16. ANTHESIS
• Vijay et al. (1977) reported that male flower buds took 22-24 days from initiation to full bloom
and the female flowers 19-22 days.
• Anthesis started at 5.50 h in the female and 06.20 h in the male, with a peak of 05.50 h in the
female and 06.50 h in the male.
• Flowering continued until 07.20 h. Dehiscence of anther started at 22.15 h reached a peak of
22.0 h and was completed by mid night.
• The stigma was receptive for 18 h before and after anthesis but most receptive for 12 h before
and after. Maharana et al. (1995a) observed that in sweet gourd pollen grain was remained
viable for 36 h and hand pollination was better than open pollination for fruit set.

17. • The last week of August and the first week of September were peak
flowering periods of male and female plants respectively.
• The period from planting to flowering was about 39 days for female plants
and 43 days for male plants, the period for bud initiation to flowering
being 13 days in pistillate flowers.
• The duration of bud break to full opening was 36 and 33 min in pistil late
and staminate flowers, respectively. Anthesis occurred between 06.30 h
and 08.00 to 09.00 h.
• The average fruit set was 14.72 per cent, the highest being 22.89 per cent
in mid August.

18. HARVESTING, YIELD AND PROCESSING
• Fully developed but immature fruits are harvested for vegetable use.
• Generally a single vine of spine gourd yields 3 4 kg fruit and 160-180
quintals yield is realized from a hectare field.
• For preserving the fruits of sweet gourd, slice the hard green mass, blanch
1 kg slice in 3 litre lactic acid solution at 3.5 pH for 4 minutes at 82°C.
• At this level the retention of ascorbic acid is maximum. The slice can be
dried in sun and kept in closed tin containers for use in future.

19. FRUIT

20. DISEASES
• Anthracnose: Leaves, flowers and fruits are infected with the attack of
this disease. Spray 0.1 per cent Carbendazim at 10 days interval.
• Downy mildew: It is a fungal disease. Symptoms appear as yellowish
spots on leaves and it is centralized to leaf vein. Spray 0.25 per cent
Mancozeb at 10 days interval.
• Powdery mildew: caused by Oidium sp. in sweet gourd was first time
reported in Nagaland. Spray 0.2 percent mancozeb or wettable Sulphur.

21. INSECT PESTS
• Epilachna beetle: adult and larvae both damage the crop by eating tender leaves.
Sometimes, larvae attack on roots. Maximum damage is observed from mid-June
to August. For control dust the crop by 5 kg Carbaryl 5.D + 5 kg ash/acre or 100
kg Carbaryl 50% WP dissolved in 100 litres of water and spray alternatively at 15
days intervals.
• Fruit fly: Fruit fly lays eggs in flesh of tender fruit and after emergence of larvae,
they eat flesh inside and fruits start decaying. Spray Ecothion on Folithion 50 EC
or 50 g Carbaryl WP 50 per cent dissolved in 250 litres of water and add 1.25 kg
jaggery and spray evenly on whole plants.

22. GENETIC RESOURCES AND IMPROVEMENTS
• Under the AP funded project Improvement of Underutilized Vegetable Crops, its
germplasm have been collected at ICAR Research complex for NEH Region,
Barapani and Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, Varanasi. Twenty genotypes
of sweet gourd were collected from different parts of Assam.
• Highest yield per plant was recorded in genotype C-8 and earliest in female
flowering in C-20, which was similar to C 8 in yield potential. Attributes like
number of leaves per plant and thickness of fruit pericarp exhibited the highest
estimates of genotype and phenotypic coefficients of variability, heritability and
genetic advance.