The Effect of Seed-Soaking in Cytokinin on the Vegetative Growth of White-Seed Melon (Cucumeropsis mannii Naudin)
Abstract
The study was conducted to investigate the effect of Cytokinin (6-Benzyl-aminopurine); BAP at two concentrations on the growth of Cucumeropsis mannii and was conducted at the Screen house of the Department of Plant Science and Biotechnology, Rivers State University, Port-Harcourt, Nigeria. Cucumeropsis mannii is a species of melon native to tropical West, Central and East Africa and cultivated widely in a number of countries including Nigeria, Benin republic and Cameroon primarily for its ‘leaves’ rich in nutrients and are of high medicinal value, which are consumed as vegetables in some parts of Benin republic and in some Eastern parts of Nigeria and for its white, flat and smooth seeds called ’Egusi-itoo’ which serves as food and as a source of oil. Viable seeds of Cucumeropsis mannii sterilized in 70% ethanol solution were presoaked in 50ppm and 100ppm concentrations each of BAP for four hours. Data collection was done at an interval of two weeks. The collected data; plant height, number of leaves per plant, leaf area, internode length, fresh weight, dry weight and chlorophyll content were subjected to analysis of variance and tested for significance at 5% level of significance. BAP was effective on enhancing growth as the highest mean number of leaves (11.6), mean leaf area (73.5cm2), mean internode length (5.1cm), mean fresh weight (17.0g), mean dry weight (2.6g) and mean chlorophyll content (35.7spad) was recorded with the use of 50ppm BAP while the highest mean plant height (43.3cm) was recorded in the control. The study established that improvement of vegetative growth of Cucumeropsis mannii which entails availability of healthy green leaves for consumption as vegetables, and for medicinal use, as well as the possibility of improving fruit and seed quality is achievable with the use of 50ppm BAP.
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