Inheritance of some Qualitative Characters in Luffa Species Thakur M. R.*, Choudhury B. Division of Horticulture, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Delhi-12 *Present address: Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana.
Summary Studies on the inheritance of corolla colour, type of androecium, time of anthesis, and fruit taste have been conducted for the first time in interspecific crosses of Luffa and on the fruit surface in the intervarietal cross in L. acutangula; new gene symbols for the genes controlling corolla colour and type of androecium have been proposed. The corolla colour [orange yellow with green veins (YY) of L. cylindrica vs. lemon yellow (yy) of L. acutangula], the type of androecium [Stamen 5(2+2+1) of L. acutangula (FF) vs. five free stamens of L. cylindrica (ff)], the fruit surface, [ridged (RiRi) of L. acutangula] and seed surface [pitted (PP) vs. non-pitted (pp) in L. acutangula] were found to be monogenically inherited. There was partial dominance for earliness in the time of anthesis. The fruits in both the species of Luffa were non-bitter but their F, hybrids were all bitter-fruited. Back-crosses to both the non-bitter parents segregated in a 1: 1 ratio for bitter and non-bitter fruits. It was, therefore, thought that the species acutangula which has been reported to have some bitter forms possessed the gene Bi for bitterness, the action of which was suppressed by a recessive suppressor gene s and the species cylindrica accordingly possessed their alleles bi and S. The interaction of Bi with the dominant allele S made the fruits bitter. The genetic constitution of L. acutangula and L. cylindrica in respect of fruit taste would, therefore, be Bi/Bi s/s and bi/bi S/S, respectively. Top |