Morphological and Biochemcal basis of Gall Midge Lasioptera bryoniae (Schiner) resistance in Bitter gourd Muthukumar M., Sridharan S., Kennedy J.S., Jeyakumar P.1, Arumugam T.2 Department of Agricultural Entomology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641 003 (T.N.), India 1Department of Crop Physiology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641 003 (T.N.), India 2Department of Vegetable Crops, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641 003 (T.N.), India Online published on 20 July, 2019. Abstract Twenty-two germplasms of Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia) was screened for their resistance against bitter gourd gall midge Lasioptera bryoniae. Total number of maggots/gall was correlated with length and width of the gall. Gall midge infestation indicated that IC 582449 was resistant with the gall index of 35.86 as compared to susceptible germplasm of IC 582411 with gall index of 437.22. The resistant and susceptible germplasms were subjected to biochemical analysis. Biochemical parameters viz., total phenol, total sugars, total protein, total amino acid, total chlorophyll; nucleic acids viz., Total DNA, Total RNA and peroxidase activity were analysed for both infested and uninfected plants. Results showed that gall index is the one of the reliable factors to confer the resistance in gall midge resistance. Whereas in biochemical parameters total phenols and total sugars are the resistance conferring factors against the gall midge in bitter gourd. Top Keywords Lasioptera bryoniae, Momordica charantia, Morphological & biochemical basis, Resistant. Top |