Morphological and molecular characterization of Satputia (Luffa hermaphrodita Singh & Bhandari) revealed substantial diversity for use in breeding programme

Luffa hermaphrodita Singh & Bhandari, known as Satputia, a semi-wild taxon originating from L. graveolens is an underutilized vegetable. It has a unique clustered fruiting habit, smooth fruits and bisexual flowers. Desirable traits such as plant architecture, earliness, crossability with ridge gourd and fertile hybrids has prospects for utilization in ridge-gourd improvement. Despite these advantages, no systematic study has been done for genetic characterization of Luffa hermaphrodita. Therefore, morphological and molecular characterization of a set of 36 genotypes of Satputia collected from three phytogeographical regions of India was performed. Morphological characterization revealed a high genotypic variation indicating wide diversity within the genotypes. Five clusters were observed through D² analysis, with cluster I and II showing maximum inter-cluster distance. First six principal components explained 80.3% of total variation. Economically important traits, viz, node number of first hermaphrodite flower, fruits per cluster, clusters per plant and vine length contributed maximum towards divergence in Satputia genotypes. Based on yield and its attributing traits, Satputia genotypes DSat-8, DSat-63, DSat-112–1, DSat-116 and DSat-125 were identified as promising and will be utilized for ridge gourd improvement. Molecular characterization with EST-SSR primers and ISSR markers could delineate the genotypes into two distinct clusters belonging to L. acutangula and L. hermaphrodita with moderate diversity. Five ISSR primers with high resolving power and one EST-SSR primer pair are valuable for diversity analysis and DNA fingerprinting in Luffa spp. This investigation has revealed untapped variability in Satputia and identified promising genotypes that would play a significant role in ridge gourd improvement.