Effect of Maturity stages on seed recovery and quality in bitter gourd

In Kerala, bitter gourd is the most important vegetable crop grown throughout the state in garden land or in rice fallows. Good quality seed is a pre requisite for getting high productivity. Hence there is growing demand for the production of quality seeds in this crop. Seed quality is influenced by the stage of harvest. Usually the fruits are allowed to ripe on the plant and seeds are extracted from these ripe fruits. In many crops, physiological maturity of seed is attained well before the ripening of fruits. Seeds have maximum dry weight, germination and vigour at physiological maturity stage. Further in bitter gourd, fruit splitting and seed loss occur if fruits are allowed to retain on the plant and ripe fully. Since available literature on the physiological maturity stage of bitter gourd seed is limited, a study was undertaken to find out the physiological maturity of seeds in bitter gourd.