SEASONAL VARIABILITY STUDY ON THE GENETIC AND NUTRITIVE QUALITIES OF SELECTED GOLDEN MELON GENOTYPES

ONI,, Ayodele Tunmise (2021) SEASONAL VARIABILITY STUDY ON THE GENETIC AND NUTRITIVE QUALITIES OF SELECTED GOLDEN MELON GENOTYPES. Masters thesis, Landmark University, Omu Aran, Kwara State.

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Abstract

T The role of agriculture in enhancing global food security is mostly dependent on various research that work with variations across genus and species to develop improved varieties that are high yielding and tolerant to adverse external factors, emphasizing the importance of genetic variability. Five golden melon genotypes (Cucumis melo L.) were evaluated in a study conducted on field and screen house experiments during rainy and dry seasons to study their genetic and nutritive qualities and estimate; degree of heritability, genetic variability, correlation amongst traits and path co-efficient. The vine length, number of branches, number of flowers, number of fruits, fruit size, fruit length, fruit weight, and number of seeds, days to 50% flowering and days to fruit initiation were the measured agronomic characteristics. The season effect was significant on vegetative traits with early season genotypes recording significantly higher vegetative characters than the late season genotypes in the following characters; vine length at 4 and 6 WAT in the field experiment at 79.43cm and 158.90cm respectively, vine length at 2 and 6 WAT in the screen house experiment at 32.78cm and 139.92cm respectively, number of branches at 6 WAT (4.07) in the field experiment and number of branches at 6 WAT (3.80) in the screen house experiment. Caribbean queen F1 (V5) recorded significantly longer vine length at 2, 4 and 6 WAT (32.13cm, 59.78cm and 100.50cm respectively) in the field experiment at, Epsilon F1 (V3) had longest vine at 2 WAT (33.11cm) in the screen house experiment, Delta F1 (V4) recorded longest vine at 6 WAT (121.61cm) in the screen house experiment, Delta F1 (V4) also recorded most branches (4.11) in the field experiment and Caribbean queen F1 recorded most branches (3.44) in the screen house experiment. Early season genotypes had significantly higher reproductive characters than late season genotypes in all the reproductive characters ( number of flowers per branch at 6 WAT, number of flowers per plant at 4 and 6 WAT, number of fruits per plant, fruit size, fruit weight and fruit length in the field and screen house experiments) except in; number of flowers per branch at 4 WAT in field and screen house experiments, fruit length in screen house experiment and number of seeds per fruit in field and screen house experiments. Epsilon F1 (V3) recorded significantly higher reproductive characters than other genotypes for most of the traits except in; number of flowers per branch at 4 and 6 WAT in field and screen house experiments, number of flowers per plant at 4 and 6 WAT in field experiment, number of flowers per plant at 6 WAT in screen house experiment and number of fruits per plant in field and screen house experiments. Most traits in the four environmental conditions recorded high coefficient of variation and high degree of heritability; from an observation during the study, number of flowers per branch at 6WAT recorded 54.36%, 46.79%, 81.32% and 59.51% coefficient of variation in early and late season field and screen house experiments respectively, 95.41% and 79.22% broad sense heritability in the early season field and screen house experiments, genes controlling traits with high broad sense heritability will most likely be inherited by offspring. Caribbean queen F1 (V5) and Delta F1 (V4) genotypes are recommended for cultural practices such as cover cropping and green manure composting. Epsilon F1 (V3) is recommended for further research for possible cultivation for reproductive parameters. DAYO F1 (V1) recorded highest values for protein (1.75%), carotene (0.10%) and vitamin A (4.90%) per twenty (20) grams of fresh fruit sample in the field experiment and 0.83%, 0.05% and 2.73% respectively, in the screen house experiment in its fruit samples. From study of inter-relationship between traits and relationship between selected traits and fruit yield, practices that will enhance vine growth are recommended to researchers so as to increase the yield of golden melon genotypes.

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