Morphological characteristics of Egusi melon cultivated in the monomodal rainforest agroecological zone of Cameroon

Being one of the neglected crops of Africa, the term ‘elite’ is completely absent in Egusi melon (Colocynthis citrullus L.) germplasm, because hardly any study has been carried out to identify cultivars and their potentials. The objective of this study was to characterise existing germplasm of Egusi melon in view of establishing base materials for future crop improvement programmes in Cameroon. A total of 5000 seeds was collected from 20 farmers in three villages, each in the 4 subdivisions of Manyu division, a hot spot for Egusi melon production in Cameroon, to constitute the gene pool in the study area. To screen the germplasm collected, a field trial was laid out in a randomised complete block design, in 4 x 3 factorial including; 4 Egusi melon provenances, each repeated 3 times on an experimental unit of 30 m2. Fruit phenotypes, specifically pepo colour and shape were considered as variables to classify cultivars. Results obtained after 120 days revealed five main forms of cultivars, namely; white round (WR), white elongated (WE), green elongated with stripes (GES), green round with stripes (GRS), and green round (GR). The white round and GR recorded dominant frequencies of 30.7 and 42.3%, respectively; while Cultivar WE and GES appeared to be threatened as they occurred at frequencies of 1.6 and 2.1, respectively. GE produced the highest number of fruits per plant, being 4 against 2 fruits recorded in WE. The white round cultivar scored the highest 100 seed weight of 13.27 against 10.18 g by WE.