Initial, evaluation on the productivity and medicinal values of some wild bitter gourd varieties in Binh Phuoc province

Abstract

Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) is used not only as a common vegetable for daily meals but also in traditional medicine to treat a number of serious diseases in many countries. Specially, a lot of studies have proved that the wild bitter gourd possesses more bioactive components than the bitter gourd.

In Vietnam, the area planting bitter gourds has been growing recently. To improve the yield and medicinal characteristics of the hybrid bitter gourd varieties, a population including nine wild bitter gourd varieties has been collected and evaluated for agronomical characteristics and medication activities in Binh Phuoc province. The result of evaluation and saponin test showed that one of nine collected varieties (AB5) demonstrated the higher potential yield (1.30 kg per plant) in comparison with that of the others, and the BT2 variety showed higher saponin activities (1.17 cm in foam test).

Based on these results, the AB5 and BT2 will be used as original materials for hybrid breeding of bitter gourds in further steps.