ABSTRACT
Snake gourd is widely cultivated in tropical regions and used as a vegetable. Snake gourd has high economic importance among vegetables in India and is commonly grown in southeast Asia, IndoMalaysia, China, Japan, and northern Australia as well as parts of Latin America, tropical Africa, and Mauritius (Miniraj et al., 1993; Bharathi et al., 2013). Twenty-four species of Trichosanthes are found in India, primarily along the Malabar coast of the Western ghats, in the low and medium elevation zones of the Eastern ghats, and northeastern region. Snake gourd is an annual herbaceous plant with trailing vines. Flowers are fragrant with white, delicately fringed, hair-like petals and fruits are 30-150 cm long, narrow, cylindrical, slender, and pointed at both ends. Snake gourds have two basic shapes: the rst one has a long, narrow fruit that is tapered from top to bottom and the other type has the same width from top to bottom. At the widest part, the fruit diameter ranges from 4 to 10 cm and surface color is greenish-white and usually stripped (Bharathi et al., 2013). The fruits at maturity become orange-red, more brous, and extremely bitter in taste. It is grown commercially in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangna, and Andhra Pradesh, and sporadically in eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh in India. Biodiesel from snake gourd oil was found to have a moderate kinematic viscosity but relatively high ash point when compared with the standards outlined in ASTM PS 121 standards for biodiesel (Adesina and Amoo, 2013).
