NEW GRAFTING METHOD FOR SEEDLESS WATERMELON PLANTS PROPAGATION | ||||
| Journal of Plant Production | ||||
| Article 13, Volume 33, Issue 11, November 2008, Page 8071-8090 PDF (660.52 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jpp.2008.171547 | ||||
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| Authors | ||||
| A. H. Khereba1; R. S. Bekhit1; A. A. Kamooh2; A. S. El-Eslamboly2 | ||||
| 1Vegetable Dept., Fac. of Agric., Cairo Univ. | ||||
| 2Hort. Res. Inst., Agric. Res. Center | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| Watermelon Citrullus lanatus is an important vegetable crop grown in Egypt. Seedless watermelon cultivars are preferred by most consumers because of their sweeter taste and lack of hard seeds. The growing costs of seedless watermelon (triploid hybrid watermelon) in Egypt is very expensive because its very expensive seed price, triploid seeds do not germinate well and the less homogenous germination and growth. For this reason, this study aimed to propagate seedless watermelon by developing new pattern of grafting technique for watermelon plants propagation to minimize the amounts of imported watermelon hybrids seeds in general and seedless watermelon in particular and decreasing the cost of seedling production and producing homogenous plants characteristics. Grafting is a method of asexual plant propagation widely used in horticulture. It is most commonly used for the propagation of trees and shrubs grown commercially. While, vegetable crops are often grafted including tomato, pepper, eggplant, cucumber, melon and watermelon. The main advantage of grafting in this case is for diseases resistant rootstocks. The new method of grafting in this study is the first method for using the grafting as a propagation method in vegetable crops. Grafting did not use before this method as a method of propagation in the vegetables and non-woody plants. The new approach of grafting technique is depending on dividing the mother plants from seedless (Chiffon F1) and seeded watermelon (Aswan F1 hybrid) plants which grown in the plastic house conditions after 75 days from transplanting. Three types of cuttings were used as a scions. The first type is the cutting from terminal growing point of the main stem and lateral branches 6-10cm in length 0.45-0.6 cm in diameter, the second type is cutting included two nodes, buds and leaves and the third type is cuttings included one node, bud and leaf for using its as scions and grafting them onto four rootstocks i.e., Lagenaria siceraria, Bottle and Calabash gourd, Pumpkin Cucurbita moschata and Ercole Cucurbita maxima × Cucurbita moschata by using the hole insertion method. The experiment was conducted in randomized complete blocks design with three replicates during the season of 2007/2008 including twelve grafting treatments and the control seedless watermelon hybrids were sown without grafting. The obtained results showed that, the Cucurbita rootstocks had a lower survival rate than Lagenaria rootstocks with all types of cuttings. The grafted plants by this technique showed significant increment in most characteristics such as vegetative growth, early and total yield, fruit characteristics, total sugars and reducing or non-reducing sugars as compared with the seedless watermelon without grafting as a control. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Watermelon; Rootstock; Grafting; Seedless; Gourd; Propagation; Triploid; Legenaria; Cucurbita | ||||
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