Research Results on Breeding Fresh Wax Gourd VC21 Cultivar

The study aimed to evaluate agro-biological characteristics, yield, quality, and combining ability of self-inbreeding lines and to select F₁ hybrid waxgourd combinations through survey and variety comparison experiments at Field Crops Research Institute, Hai Duong Province. Based on combining ability evaluation of 31 lines of fourth self-inbreeding generation,6 wax gourd lines were selected, namely BA6-3-7, BB3-4-5, BB5-6-4, BB7-3- 6, BF5-6-4 and BF9-3-2 with high general combining ability in terms of yield. At the same time, a combination of hybrid wax gourd designated D5/D2 (BF5-6-4/BB3-4-5; named VC21) was selected. The VC21 wax gourd grew well and had good resistance to downy mildew and powdery mildew in both spring-summer and autumn-winter cropping seasons. The VC21 variety had a growth period of 70-75 days from planting to the first harvest, about 105-110 days to the end of harvest and plant height of 370.9-405.2cm. The fruit weight was 1.45-1.51kg and yield of 50.04-57.76 tons/ha. The gourds showed dark green skin, light green flesh with dry matter content of 4.8%, fiber of 17.30%, total sugar of 2.45% and vitamin C content of 4.75mg. VC21 wax gourd variety had fruit shape, fruit weight and quality suitable to consumer preference (fruit length of 39.7-42.8cm, fruit diameter of 7.5-7.8cm, flesh thickness of 2.3-2.5cm).