Faizabad Parwal-4
Listed as Faizabad Parwal-4 among promising pointed gourd varieties; the name points to Faizabad in eastern Uttar Pradesh. We found no source for the claims, sometimes repeated, that it tolerates sodic soil or suits a bower better than other varieties.
Quick facts
- Type
- Vine/root cutting
- Season
- All seasons
- Starts bearing
- Not published for this variety; ICAR examples for the Swarna varieties: first picking 4–6 months after an October planting
- Seed rate
- Vine cuttings, with one male plant for ten female plants. The ICAR Puri example used 1,750 plants an acre
- Expected yield
- No variety figure published; ICAR-IIVR gives 230 q/ha for its Kashi varieties as a benchmark
- Suitable soil
- Tolerates reclaimed sodic soil better than most varieties
- Disease resistance
- No variety-specific disease record found
- Release
- Name points to Faizabad and Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology; no release notice or year found
Actual yield depends on sowing time, soil, irrigation, weather, seed quality and crop management.
About this variety
Faizabad Parwal-4 is a pointed gourd variety named in cultivation guides, which list Faizabad Parwal-1, -3 and -4 among the promising varieties. The name points to Faizabad in eastern Uttar Pradesh and to Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, but we found no release notice, year, fruit description, trial or yield figure for it. Claims that it tolerates reclaimed sodic soil or that it is specially suited to bower growing have no source that we could find. Like every pointed gourd it is grown from vine cuttings and is dioecious, so a field needs one male plant for every ten female ones. Documented farms trained their pointed gourd on trellises.
Should you pick this variety?
Choose Faizabad Parwal-4 only if it is what your local nursery supplies and you can see fruiting vines. A cultivation slide deck lists it among promising pointed gourd varieties with Faizabad Parwal-1 and -3, and the name points to Faizabad in eastern Uttar Pradesh. We found no release notice, year, trial, yield figure or fruit description for it. You may hear that it tolerates sodic soil or is meant for bower growing; we found no trial or official statement for either claim. If your soil is salty or sodic, test it and plant a trial strip before you commit land, and compare against a documented variety such as Swarna Alaukik.
Sowing & cultivation
- Seed rateVine cuttings, with one male plant for ten female plants. The ICAR Puri example used 1,750 plants an acre
- Spacing1.5 x 1.5 m under a trellis with mulching (ICAR Puri example); vertical trellis at 10,000 plants a hectare at Ranchi
Advantages & considerations
Why farmers may choose it
- Grown in Uttar Pradesh, so cuttings and buyers may be easy to find near you.
- Takes the same trellis and mulching practice that ICAR's documented pointed gourd farms used.
Things to consider
- No release notice, yield figure, disease record or fruit description found.
- The sodic-soil and bower claims are unsourced; do not buy on them without a soil test and a trial strip.
Suitable regions
States this variety is recommended for — check locally, since a state can have more than one recommended zone.
- Uttar Pradesh
How the documented farms trained their vines
ICAR describes two farms that raised pointed gourd well. At Ranchi, the mother block of one hectare, planted in October 2021 with 10,000 plants, stood on a vertical trellis, and the first year gave 18 tonnes. At Puri, the one-acre farm planted 1,750 plants at 1.5 x 1.5 m under a trellis with mulching in October 2019 and picked 107 quintals in 2020. The Bhubaneswar research trial used 2 x 1 m. These are three different densities, from about 4,300 plants a hectare (Puri) to 10,000 (Ranchi) and 5,000 (2 x 1 m), so there is no single right spacing in the sources.
None of this is specific to Faizabad Parwal-4, so we cannot say it needs a bower or does better on one. What the examples do show is that both farms lifted the vines off the ground, and that the Puri farmer used mulching too. Trellis and mulch cost money; set aside a small trial strip of ten or twenty vines for a season to see whether the extra cost pays in clean, straight fruit that the buyer wants.
Can you keep your own planting material?
This crop is raised from cuttings, not from seed, so you can take your own planting material. Take cuttings only from healthy, well-grown plants that are true to the variety, and never from one that showed disease — a cutting carries its mother plant with it. Where a nursery or a government farm sells clean planting material, that is the safer start.
How it compares with other varieties
Every Pointed Gourd (Parwal) variety with a page on this site, side by side. The row for this page is highlighted.
| Variety | Best for | Starts bearing | Yield | States |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Faizabad Parwal-1 | Eastern Uttar Pradesh farmers whose local nursery stocks it; compare with a newer variety | Not published for this variety; ICAR examples for the Swarna varieties: first picking 4–6 months after an October planting | No variety figure published; ICAR-IIVR gives 230 q/ha for its Kashi varieties as a benchmark | Uttar Pradesh |
| Faizabad Parwal-4this page | Uttar Pradesh farmers whose nursery stocks it; test it before planting a large block | Not published for this variety; ICAR examples for the Swarna varieties: first picking 4–6 months after an October planting | No variety figure published; ICAR-IIVR gives 230 q/ha for its Kashi varieties as a benchmark | Uttar Pradesh |
| Rajendra Parwal-1 | Bihar farmers whose local nursery stocks it and who can see the mother vines in fruit | Not published for this variety; ICAR examples for the Swarna varieties: first picking 4–6 months after an October planting | No variety figure published; ICAR gives 25–30 t/ha for the Swarna varieties as a benchmark | Bihar |
| Rajendra Parwal-2 | Bihar farmers who can verify the vines in fruit; compare it with a Swarna block | Not published for this variety; ICAR examples for the Swarna varieties: first picking 4–6 months after an October planting | No variety figure published; ICAR gives 25–30 t/ha for the Swarna varieties as a benchmark | Bihar |
| Swarna Alaukik | Soft-seeded table and sweet-making fruit; eastern plateau and the Odisha coast | First picking about 4–6 months after an October planting; fruits February to October (ICAR examples) | 25–30 t/ha average for the Swarna varieties (ICAR); 107 q from one acre at Puri, Odisha, in 2020 | Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar |
| Swarna Rekha | Buyers who want a striped fruit; eastern plateau and Odisha | First picking about 4–6 months after an October planting; fruits February to October (ICAR examples) | 21.10 t/ha mean for Rekha with Suruchi in the 46-genotype Ranchi trial (2021-23); ICAR gives 25–30 t/ha for the three Swarna varieties | Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar |
| Swarna Suruchi | A plain light-green fruit from the Ranchi centre; ask for a trial block first | First picking about 4–6 months after an October planting; fruits February to October (ICAR examples) | 21.10 t/ha mean for Suruchi with Rekha in the 46-genotype Ranchi trial (2021-23); ICAR gives 25–30 t/ha for the three Swarna varieties | Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar |
Tools for this crop
The numbers you need next: how much seed to buy, whether the lot germinates, what the fertilizer bill looks like and what Pointed Gourd (Parwal) is selling for.
- Seed Rate CalculatorHow much seed your Pointed Gourd (Parwal) plot needs, corrected for the germination of the lot you bought.
- Seed Variety FinderFilter every Pointed Gourd (Parwal) variety on this site by state, season, duration and soil.
- Fertilizer CalculatorTurn the NPK recommendation for Pointed Gourd (Parwal) into bags of urea, DAP and MOP for your field size.
- Crop Profit CalculatorPut your seed, labour and input costs against the yield you expect from this variety.
- Mandi Price CheckerToday's Pointed Gourd (Parwal) rate in your nearest mandi, before you fix a price with a trader.
Subsidy and government support
Schemes that help with the cost of Pointed Gourd (Parwal) seed or planting material. Rules and the application route are on each scheme page.
Frequently asked questions
Does Faizabad Parwal-4 tolerate sodic soil?
We found no trial, release note or official statement that says so. The claim is repeated informally, and we could trace it to no source. Pointed gourd in general prefers a light, well-drained soil: a cultivation slide deck notes it does not grow well in heavy soil. If your land is sodic or saline, get a soil test, ask your KVK for the reclamation advice for your soil, and plant a small trial strip beside a documented variety such as Swarna Alaukik. Do not put a whole field on the claim.
What kind of fruit will my buyer pay for?
ICAR records a Puri farmer whose dark-coloured, thick-skinned, hard-seeded pointed gourd sold poorly. He moved to soft-seeded, light-green varieties and found them preferred in the Puri, Bhubaneswar and Cuttack markets. The Bhubaneswar trial shows how much fruit varies: light to dark green, striped to unstriped, round to oblong. So before you plant Faizabad Parwal-4, take its fruit to your buyer and ask if he will pay for it. Check the colour, skin and seeds, because those decided that farmer's sales.
How is Faizabad Parwal-4 different from Faizabad Parwal-1?
We found no source that compares them. A cultivation slide deck lists Faizabad Parwal-1, -3 and -4 as three separate promising varieties, and none of the sources we read describes the fruit, yield or duration of any of the three. The entry for Faizabad Parwal-1 carries the same warning. If you want to know which of the two suits your plot, plant a strip of each with 1 male vine to 10 female vines, weigh the picking every week for a season and keep the one that gives more kilograms of fruit your buyer accepts.
When should I plant Faizabad Parwal-4?
No planting date is published for this variety. The two ICAR farm examples for pointed gourd planted in October: the Ranchi mother block in October 2021 (picking from about April to October) and the Puri farm in October 2019 (picking from February to August 2020). The 2024 Ranchi paper adds that the vines establish in the first year, rest through winter and fruit again after dormancy. Use October as a starting guide for the plains, and ask your KVK or the Uttar Pradesh horticulture department for the local window.
Sourced from: Cultivation practices of pointed gourd — slide deck listing promising varieties (secondary source; names only), Shri Sachin Jha: a budding agri-entrepreneur — ICAR (ICAR-RCER, Ranchi; trellis mother block, plant prices), Shri Chandan Kumar Khuntia: a successful farmer-entrepreneur — ICAR (trellis, mulching, fruit the market rejected), Genetic diversity in pointed gourd genotypes under eastern plateau and hill region — Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences 94(7), 2024 (ICAR-RCER, Ranchi), Phenotypic diversity analysis in pointed gourd — Cucurbit Genetics Cooperative Report 33-34, 2010-11 (CHES Bhubaneswar, ICAR-IIHR; includes Rajendra Parwal), ICAR-IIVR, Varanasi organizes Pointed Gourd Field Day-cum-Kisan Gosthi, 21 June 2019 — ICAR. editorial policy.