International Journal of Horticulture, 2016, Vol.6, No.22, 1-14
7
Note: *values represent means of three replicates and are approximated to 3 decimal places; values of the same alphabet are not
significantly different from each other at P>0.05 or vice-versa
Table 5 Effects of Manuring on growth and yield characters of water melon (Rainy season crop)
Manure
Type
No. of
leaves
Vine length
(cm)
No of
branches
No of
flowers
No of
fruits
No of fruit
Rots
No of
Cracked
fruit
Fruit length
Fruit
Diameter
Fruit
weight (kg)
Control
1.66a
2.12a
2.29a
0.85a
1.13a
0.54a
0.28b
18.300a
38.200b
1.039a
OMF
1.70a
2.22ab
2.82ab
0.87a
1.02a
0.60b
0.00a
18.567a
34.967a
1.261a
NPK
1.73a
2.33b
3.03b
0.95a
1.24b
0.85c
0.50c
25.292b
47.458c
1.899b
Note: *values represent means of three replicates and are approximated to 3 decimal places; values of the same alphabet are not
significantly different from each other at P>0.05 or vice-versa
2.4 Effects of variety and manuring on growth and fruit yield characters of watermelon
Table 6 and Table 7 show the combined effect of variety and manuring on growth and yield characters of
watermelon for both rainy and late season crops. The results show that treatment effects were not significant on
growth parameters (number of leaves per plant, vine length per plant and number of vine branches per plant)
except for unmanured Anderson where significantly lower values were obtained. Charleston Grey in combination
of NPK fertilizer gave the highest values for rainy season crop excepting Kaolac in combination of NPK which
produced the highest number of vine branches in the rainy season crop. In the late season there was no significant
difference in the number of leaves per plant, vine length per plant and number of vine branches per plant in terms
of response to manuring. Unmanured Crimson Sweet and Anderson produced the highest and lowest values of
number of vine branches per plant respectively. The measured fruit yield parameters, which included number of
fruits, fruit rots and cracked fruits per plant, mean fruit weight and mean fruit diameters, differed among varieties
in both rainy and late season sowing.
In the rainy season crop, the highest number of fruits was obtained for Crimson Sweet under NPK fertilizer
application, Anderson under both organo-mineral fertilizer and unmanured control and Sugarbaby under
organo-mineral fertilizer application. The highest number of fruit rots is recorded for Charleston Grey for both
manured and unmanured treatments. Sugarbaby shows no record of fruit rot for manure types tested. There was no
significant effect of manuring on number of cracked fruits except for unmanured Kaolac. Mean fruit length, mean
fruit diameter and mean fruit weight respectively showed significant response to organo-mineral and NPK
fertilizers with the highest values recorded in Crimson Sweet, Charleston Grey and Anderson.
For late season crop, result showed that Charleston Grey recorded the highest number of fruits per plant for NPK/
fertilized plot. The effect of manure application on fruit rot was similar among the varieties. Cracked fruits did not
occur in the manured treatments except for Crimson Sweet (unmanured), Kaolac (organo-mineral) and Sugarbaby
(unmanured and organomineral). The widest fruit diameter was obtained for Anderson (NPK fertilizer) while the
biggest fruit weight was obtained for Charleston Grey (unmanured).
Table 6 Combine effects of variety and Manuringon growth and fruit yield characters of water melon (Rainy season crop)
Variety
Manure types
No. of
leaves
Vine
length
(cm)
No of
branches
No of
flowers
No of
fruits
No of
fruit
Rots
No of
Cracked
fruit
Fruit
length
Fruit
Diameter
Fruit
weight
(kg)
Crimson
Sweet
Unmanure
1.61
2.05
2.21
0.93
1
0
0
15
31
1
OrganoMineral1.72
2.19
2.75
0.87
0
0
0
0
0
0
NPK fertilizer 1.65
2.29
2.96
0.78
1.41
1
0
27
57
2.8
