Nutrient Management in Underutilized Vegetable Crop Ivy Gourd [Coccinia grandis (L.) Voigt]

Background: Ivy gourd is the most nutritious and healthy vegetable among the underutilized vegetable crops. To increase the production effective nutrient management is key tool. Methods: The experiment on growth and yield improvement in ivy gourd through integrated nutrient management was conducted in a randomised block design with three replications at Regional Horticulture Research Station in ASPEE College of Horticulture and Forestry, Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari, Gujarat. Results: An application of 50% RDF (Recommended Dose of Fertilizer) + Bio-compost had a beneficial effect on growth parameters like minimum days to flowering (35.83 days) and fruit harvest (47.11), maximum dry biomass of shoot (8.41 kg) and dry biomass of root (840 g) with near to neutral fruit pH (6.8). Maximum length of fruit (5.12 cm), diameter of fruit (1.80 cm), weight of fruit (4.57 g), maximum fruit yield plant-1 (1.64 kg), highest fruit yield (16.60 t ha-1), maximum leaf nutrient content (N - 1.753 ppm, P - 0.456 ppm, K - 1.653 ppm) and soil nutrient status (N - 211.77 kg ha-1, P2O5 - 69.52 kg ha-1, K2O - 498.96 kg ha-1) were also noted in 50% RDF + Bio-compost as compared to other treatment.

Solar Drying of Ivy Gourd: Influence of Various Dipping Solutions on Activation Energy and Moisture Diffusivity

The study is aimed to enhance the shelf life of ivy gourd through solar drying method in open, forced and natural convection mode. Ivy gourd is treated as primary agent to prepare medicines and the stems, leaves; flowers are used to cure the diseases related diabetics, ulcer, skin. The normal shelf life is 2-3 days and it can be increased up to 6 months with an effective drying process. The experiment is intended to find the best drying process among the open, natural and forced convection mode with an initial dipping method with ascorbic acid, lemon juice, sugar solution, honey solutions individually and a control sample (without dipping). A 3kg sample of ivy gourd is dipped in 10g/L of the each of the solution and it is used for the three drying process individually. The obtained results are indicating that forced convection method for ascorbic acid is best among the other drying method with highest moisture diffusivity is 7.88×10-8 m2/s and lowest activation energy 21.12 kJ/mol. It was observed that the drying kinetics of ivy gourd should be considered an indicator of efficiency for solar drying technique from environmental safety perspective. The influence of dipping solution and drying mechanisms on the functionalities of drying are discussed with suitable illustrations.

Genetic Variability Analysis in Local Germplasm of Ivy Gourd (Coccinia grandis L.) in Southern Rajasthan Conditions

An experiment was carried out on study of genetic variability in 30 genotypes of ivy gourd at Horticulture Department of Rajasthan College of Agriculture, MPUAT, Udaipur during July to September 2017. Twelve Growth and quality characters were studied. The analysis of variance indicated that the mean sum of square due to genotypes were highly significant for all the characters suggesting the presence of good deal of variability in material studied. High magnitude of genotypic as well as phenotypic coefficient of variations were recorded for traits viz., petiole length (27.63% and 29.93%), inter nodal length (22.73% and 23.40%), leaf width (22.63% and 23.35%) and leaf width (22.52% and 23.56%) and highest heritability recorded for inter nodal length (94.30%) followed by leaf length (93.92%), leaf width (91.37%), ascorbic acid (89.48 %), petiole length (85.17%), fruit weight (82.10%), fruit length (79.98%) and chlorophyll content in leaves (78.23%).The highest genetic gain was recorded for petiole length (52.52%) followed by viz., inter nodal length (45.47%), leaf length (45.17%), leaf width (44.34%), fruit weight (34.21%), fruit length (28.24%) fruit diameter (23.31%) & genetic advance were also higher for some characters. Availability of high GCV & PCV shows presence of sufficient genetic variability for evaluated traits. This indicates that there is an ample scope of selection in the present gene pool for yield and its components.