THE EFFECT OF THE GENOTYPE AND METHOD OF AGRICULTURE IN THE YIELD AND ITS COMPONENTS AND ESTIMATE OF SOME GENETIC PARAMETERS MUSKMELON ( Cucumis melon L. ) GROWTH IN GYPSUM SOILS

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the College of Agriculture, University of Tikrit for two seasons 2008 and 2009 to evaluate the performance of six genotypes of Muskmelon  which three local cultivars ( Hafz nafsah , Kata'a nafsah and Kahdrawy)    and  three foreign Ananas , Golden beauty ,  and hybrid Judy   using two methods of planting the seeds direct ,and planting of seedlings in the open field. using ( R.C.B.D.) for split- plot design with three replications  to study their effect  on some quantitative and qualitative characteristics of Muskmelon and some genetic parameters. The results showed  the superiority significantly of  Kata'a nafsah and Golden beauty  in earliness yield and    Ananas  , Kata'a nafsah and  Hafz nafsah   scored increase  the number of fruits , fruit weight and yield  per plant  respectively .also  genotypes Golden Beauty and  Khadrawy  showed  significant increase  in the thickness of the pulp and  Kata'a nafsah   showed increasing   percentage of  total  soluble solid  and degree  of  hardness of fruit in Golden Beauty.      Method of planting was showed significantly  increasing in earliness of yield for two seasons and  number of fruits , fruit weight, and yield  per  plant for the first season only. The interaction  between  method of transplanting with  Kata'a nafsah   and Khadrawy gave  earliness yield and significant superiority to the yield per  plant while the interaction  between  Kata'a nafsah   and  Khadrawy  with method direct agriculture caused significant effect on the thickness  of the pulp fruit  for two season respectively  and interaction of  Ananas  and Hafz  nafsah  with transplanting in the  fruits number , fruit weight and  Golden Beuty with mothed of direct planting gave  significantly increase of degree of fruit hardness for second  season only .     While cracking of the fruit was showed that Annas ,Judy and Hafz nafsah  were without cracking  also  genetic variation was different form zero of all quantitative and total  soluble solid  for both seasons  and hardness of fruit for second season only       the degree of heritability broad sense was high for all characters  and medium for degree of  hardness of fruit  and expected genetic advance showed low  values   for earliness yield and the degree of  fruit  hardness  for two seasons and medium of  number of fruits  while it was high for the remaining characters .