International Journal of Horticulture, 2016, Vol.6, No.22, 1-14
4
Continuing Table 1
Parameters
Value
Available P (mg kg
-1
)
19.60
Ca (Cmol kg
-1
)
5.67
Mg(Cmol kg
-1
)
2.84
Na (Cmol kg
-1
)
0.60
K(Cmol kg
-1
)
0.25
CEC
Base Saturation (%)
2.2 Effect of variety on growth and yield characters of watermelon
For both rainy and late season crops, the measurements which were made on vegetative growth characters of the
tested varieties of watermelon are presented in Tables 2 and Table 3. There were significant (p<0.05) differences
in the number of leaves and vine length produced per plant among the varieties in the rainy season crop (Table 2).
Charleston Grey produced the highest, but was not significantly different from those of Kaolac. However, these
two varieties produced significantly more leaves and longer vine length than Crimson sweet, Anderson and
Sugarbaby. Anderson had the lowest number of leaves and vine length respectively. In the late season crop, variety
had no significant effect on both the number of leaves and vine length per plant of watermelon (Table 3), and
Crimson sweet had the highest values for these. In the rainy season crop, the effect of variety on number of vine
branches per plant was not significant (P>0.05) (Table 2). Charleston Grey produced the highest number of
branches. Varietal differences were also not significant for number of vine branches per plant in the late season
crop, and Crimson sweet produced the highest number while Sugarbaby produced the least (Table 3). In the rainy
season crop, flower production per plant was highest in Charleston Grey although it was not significantly (P =0.
05) different from those of Kaolac and Crimson sweet (Table 2). Anderson and Sugarbaby produced significantly
lower number of flowers per plant compared with the former two varieties (Figure 1). No significant varietal
difference occurred for number of flowers per plant in the late season crop (Table 3). The number of fruits
produced per plant in the rainy season was similar in Anderson and Kaolac and significantly (P=0.05) more than
those of other varieties, particularly Crimson Sweet (Table 2). The reverse occurred in the dry season crop where
Anderson produced significantly lower number of fruits per plant relative to the other varieties which had similar
values (Table 3). There were significant differences in fruits rots per plant among varieties. Fruit rot occurred
among the varieties in a descending order of Charleston Grey > Kaolac >Anderson > Crimson sweet > Sugarbaby
in the rainy season crop (Table 2). Incidence of cracked fruits was obtained only in Kaolac and Charleston Grey,
and it was more pronounced in the former variety. In the late season crop, cracked fruit occurred only in Crimson
Sweet, Kaolac and Sugarbaby and it was more pronounced in the latter variety (Table 3). Crimson sweet produced
fruits with the shortest mean length in the rainy season crop while Charleston Grey produced fruit which were
significantly (P=0.05) longer than all the other varieties except Kaolac (Table 2). Fruit lengths in all the varieties
were not significantly different in the late season (Table 3). In the rainy season crop, mean fruit diameter was
similar in Kaolac, Anderson and Sugarbaby, and significantly (P=0.05) lower values were obtained in Crimson
Sweet and Charleston Grey respectively (Table 2). In contrast, Crimson Sweet had the widest fruit diameter in the
late season crop and differences with Kaolac, which had the least fruit diameter, was pronounced (Table 3).
Although Anderson had the heaviest mean fruit weight in the rainy season crop, this was not significantly different
from values for Charleston Grey and Kaolac, while those for Crimson sweet and Sugarbaby were significantly
lower (P=0.05)(Table 2). In the late season crop, the highest mean fruit weights was obtained in Charleston Grey
and these differed significantly from values for Anderson, Kaolac and Sugarbaby varieties (Table 3).
