Materials and methods
Seeds of Thai bitter melon landraces were collected from Prajuabkirikhan
(16 accessions), Samutprakarn (31 accessions) and Chachoengsao (27
accessions) provinces, central region of Thailand. Seeds were firstly sown in
plug trays on 18 December 2008 and then seedlings were transplanted to field
plots. Because of poor seed germination, only 74 from original 100 accessions
sown could be grown and observed their characteristics. Four seedlings from
each accession were field planted at the two - three leaf stage at a spacing of
0.50 x 0.75 m. Bamboo poles were used as a trellis to support the climbing
vine. Standard fertilization, weed control and other cultural practices were
applied to raise a good crop. Data were recorded on horticultural characteristics
such as leaf size, male and female flowers, fruit (ripe) size and weight, seed size
and number of seeds per fruit. Values averaged from ten samples of each
accession were subjected to further evaluation. Statistical analysis was
performed using the statistical package SPSS (14.0 for Windows). The study