Effect of Season, Harvest stage, After-ripening/Storage

This study was conducted in Makurdi in the wet and dry seasons of year 2016 to monitor the effects of season, harvesting stage, after-ripening and storage duration on the seed quality of sweet melon (cucumis spp). Fruits were harvested and grouped based on their harvest stage into about-to-ripen and fully-ripened, fruits were later sub-grouped and tagged for after-ripening which was done at 0day, 5days and 10days. Data were collected on fruit length, fruit width. In addition, number of seeds per fruit, dry seed weight per fruit and 100-seed weight were also taken. Thereafter, seeds were tested for viability before and after storage. Results reviewed that seeds produced in the late season showed significant superiority over those produced in the early season in all the other parameters studied except fruit length no significant differences were observed, seeds that were not stored followed by seeds stored only for three months gave higher germination percentage a situation which demonstrated that the longer the seeds remained in storage the lower the quality. Seeds from fruits after-ripened for five days followed by those not after-ripened performed better in germination.