INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BUSINESS, SOCIAL AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ISSN: 2309-7892 (Online), 2519-5530 (Print), Volume: 5, Issue: 1, Page: 60-66, October-December 2016 Invited Paper MORPHOLOGICAL FEATURES AND DRY MATTER PARTITIONING OF THREE BOTTLE GOURD (Lagenaria vulgaris L.) GENOTYPES UNDER DIFFERENT LIGHT LEVELS Nasima Akhter 1 , Md. Moinul Haque 1 , Asim Kumar Bhadra 1 , Mohammad Mohidur Rahman 1 and Md. Mahfuzar Rahman 2* [Citation: Nasima Akhter, Md. Moinul Haque, Asim Kumar Bhadra, Mohammad Mohidur Rahman and Md. Mahfuzar Rahman (2016). Morphological Features and Dry Matter Partitioning of Three Bottle Gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris l.) Genotypes under Different Light Levels. Int. J. Bus. Soc. Sci. Res. 5(1): 60-66. Retrieve from http://www.ijbssr.com/currentissueview/14013180 ] Received Date: 08/11/2016 Acceptance Date: 21/11/2016 Published Date: 23/11/2016 Abstract A field experiment was carried out at the research farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka-1207 during February 2014 to June 2014. Low light responses of three bottle gourd genotypes (High-green, BARI Lau-1 and Local white) were investigated in the present experiment in terms of morphology and dry matter production. The light treatments consisted of (i) 100% photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) measured in the open field and (ii) 75%, (iii) 50%, (iv) 25% of natural PAR obtained by using mosquito nets of variable color and mesh number. Under shade condition the stem length, internode length, leaf area and SPAD values were recorded higher than control. But the stem diameter, leaf number and SLW were lower than control treatment. Under 75% PAR, all the genotypes of bottle gourd produced higher TDM than control treatment; but the highest relative TDM was recorded in BARI-Lau-1, which was followed by Local white genotype. Result indicated that the fruit dry matter of BARI Lau-1 was more sensitive and Local white variety was less sensitive to low light. Key words: Bottle gourd, Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), Morphology and Dry matter production. Introduction Bottle gourd belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae. The bottle gourd is a vegetable crop with wide genetic diversity. It is cultivated throughput the warmer regions of the world. Due to monoecious sex behaviour and large number of seed per fruit, it is a suitable crop for production of hybrids commercially. The cultivated species is commonly known as bottle gourd, bird house gourd, trumpt gourd, calabash gourd and white flowered gourd (Siddika, 2007). It is an important partner of gourd crops in Bangladesh. This is an annual monoecious, climbing type winter herbaceous vegetable crop having the chromosome number 2n=22 (Bose and Som, 1986). Bottle gourd originated in Africa and spreaded all over the world from there (Whitaker and Davis, 1962). Morphological analysis and archaeological evidence suggested the oceanic dispersal of Bottle gourd from Africa to Asia and America by 10000-15000 BC by independent domestication on all the continents (Decker et al., 2001). Now a days, it is grown in many countries including Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, China, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, South Africa and Sudan (Yonernori and Fujeda, 1985). It grows more or less all over Bangladesh. The improvement of vegetables production should be our main concern because they are essential food items and our dietary value depends mostly on them. In Bangladesh, the average consumption of vegetable in Bangladesh is only 70 g per head per day including potato and sweet potato. Except tuber crops, it is only 30 g as against the FAO recommendation of 200g. To supply the minimum daily requirement of 200g vegetable/head/day, national production of vegetable should be over 10 million ton in addition. Population of Bangladesh is increasing rapidly, therefore, demand for vegetable is increasing simultaneously whereas the areas under vegetable production including tuber crops are 7,14,000 ha that produce 10.30 million metric tons of vegetable yearly (BBS, 2009). Unfortunately these limited areas are decreasing due to increasing the area of other crops. Under these circumstances it is necessary to find out a suitable alternative to overcome this situation. In Bangladesh bottle gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris) is one of the most important and popular winter vegetable. It occupies about 12,100 ha of land and the production is 101,325 tons per year. But the average yield is only 8.37 tons per hectare (Annon., 2005), *Corresponding Authors Email : mahfuz.sau08@gmail.com 1 Department of Agricultural Botany, Faculty of Agriculture, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh. 2 Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh.