Rajendra Parwal-1
Listed as Rajendra Parwal-1 among promising pointed gourd varieties in a cultivation guide; the name points to Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa. We found no release notice, trial or yield figure for it.
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 Bhubaneswar trial kept a 10:1 ratio)
- Expected yield
- No variety figure published; ICAR gives 25–30 t/ha for the Swarna varieties as a benchmark
- Suitable soil
- Loam
- Disease resistance
- No variety-specific disease record found
- Release
- Name points to Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa (now Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University); no release notice or year found
Actual yield depends on sowing time, soil, irrigation, weather, seed quality and crop management.
About this variety
Rajendra Parwal-1 is a pointed gourd variety named in cultivation guides, where it appears among the promising varieties along with Swarna Alaukik, Swarna Rekha, the Faizabad Parwal lines and the Chess hybrids. The name points to Rajendra Agricultural University at Pusa, Bihar, now Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, but we found no release notice, year, description of the fruit, trial or yield figure. An accession named Rajendra Parwal was among the 22 varieties and landraces from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha that ICAR-IIHR's Bhubaneswar station planted at 2 x 1 m in 2008-10. As with all pointed gourd, the crop is grown from vine cuttings and needs one male plant for every ten female ones.
Should you pick this variety?
Choose Rajendra Parwal-1 only if it is what your local nursery stocks and you can see its mother vines in fruit. A cultivation slide deck lists it among promising pointed gourd varieties with Swarna Alaukik, Swarna Rekha and the Faizabad Parwal lines, and the name points to Rajendra Agricultural University at Pusa, now Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University. We found no release notice, year, trial or yield figure. An accession called Rajendra Parwal was one of the 22 in the 2008-10 Bhubaneswar trial, but the paper names Swarna Alaukik as the top yielder, at 10.21 kg a plant, and does not single out Rajendra Parwal. If you plant it, put a trial block beside Alaukik and weigh both.
Sowing & cultivation
- Seed rateVine cuttings, with one male plant for ten female plants (the Bhubaneswar trial kept a 10:1 ratio)
- Spacing2 x 1 m in the Bhubaneswar trial; 1.5 x 1.5 m under a trellis in the ICAR Puri example
Advantages & considerations
Why farmers may choose it
- Locally stocked in Bihar, so cuttings may be easy to find near you.
- Grown from the same vine cuttings and managed the same way as the better-documented Swarna varieties.
Things to consider
- No release notice, yield figure, disease record or fruit description found; every number a seller gives you is unsourced.
- Dioecious: it needs male plants at a ratio of 1 to 10 female plants, and the sex of a cutting cannot be told before it flowers.
Suitable regions
States this variety is recommended for — check locally, since a state can have more than one recommended zone.
- Bihar
Reading a variety list: what is known and what is not
Known: the name appears in cultivation guides as a promising variety, and a plant called Rajendra Parwal was one of 22 in the Bhubaneswar trial (2008-10), which kept a 10:1 ratio of female to male plants at 2 x 1 m. In that trial yield ranged from 2.48 to 10.21 kg a plant, fruits per plant from 79.86 to 502 and fruit weight from 14.31 to 37.98 g, with Swarna Alaukik highest. Rajendra Parwal sits somewhere inside those ranges, but the printed table is too garbled for us to read its row with confidence.
Not known: who released it and when, the fruit colour and shape, days to first picking, yield per hectare, and any disease score. When a seller quotes figures for it, ask for the source. A good test is to ask for the mother field: count the fruits on a vine, weigh ten of them and compare with a Swarna vine in the same season. Ten minutes in the field gives you more than a leaflet.
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-4 | 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-1this page | 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
Who developed Rajendra Parwal-1, and when was it released?
We found no release notice, breeder or year. The name suggests Rajendra Agricultural University at Pusa in Bihar, which is now Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, and a cultivation slide deck lists the variety among promising pointed gourds. That is a naming clue, not a record. Ask the nursery who supplied its mother plants, and ask the university's horticulture department whether the variety was ever formally released and where certified cuttings are kept.
What yield can I plan on for Rajendra Parwal-1?
There is no published yield for this variety. For comparison, ICAR gives 25 to 30 t/ha for the Swarna varieties, ICAR-IIVR says its Kashi pointed gourd varieties average 230 quintals a hectare, which is 23 t/ha, and a Puri farmer recorded 107 quintals from one acre of Swarna Alaukik. A first-year mother block at Ranchi gave 18 tonnes from a hectare. Plan from the lower end, 18 t/ha, until your own picking records say otherwise.
Should I choose Rajendra Parwal-1 or Swarna Alaukik?
If your priority is evidence, Swarna Alaukik. It was the highest yielder (10.21 kg a plant) among 22 accessions at Bhubaneswar, a promising line in the 46-genotype Ranchi trial, and a Puri farmer found it the most preferred in three city markets. Rajendra Parwal-1 has none of these records. If your nursery can only supply Rajendra Parwal-1, or your buyers already know it, plant it, but keep a separate Alaukik block as a check so you can compare weights at the end of the first season.
How many male plants do I need, and how do I get them?
Keep 1 male plant to every 10 female plants, as the 2024 Ranchi paper advises and the Bhubaneswar trial did. For an acre planted like the Puri farm, 1,750 plants, that is about 160 male plants and 1,590 female ones. Male and female cuttings look alike until flowering, so the sex has to be recorded by whoever raised them. Ask the nursery to supply the male cuttings as a labelled lot, plant them evenly through the block, and note where they are, or the first flowering will show you gaps.
Sourced from: Cultivation practices of pointed gourd — slide deck listing promising varieties (secondary source; names only), Phenotypic diversity analysis in pointed gourd — Cucurbit Genetics Cooperative Report 33-34, 2010-11 (CHES Bhubaneswar, ICAR-IIHR; includes Rajendra Parwal), Genetic diversity in pointed gourd genotypes under eastern plateau and hill region — Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences 94(7), 2024 (ICAR-RCER, Ranchi), 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), ICAR-IIVR, Varanasi organizes Pointed Gourd Field Day-cum-Kisan Gosthi, 21 June 2019 — ICAR. editorial policy.