Effect of fruit size on physiological seed quality parameters of Cucumber (Cucumis sativus)

Abstract

An experiment was carried out at the Department of Seed Science and Technology, Agricultural College and Research Institute, Madurai during 2018 to find out the effect of fruit size on physiological seed quality of cucumber. Variation in fruit size of cucumber results in poor quality seeds. In order to overcome this obstacle fruit grading was done based on weight of fruit to obtain good quality seeds. Harvested fruits of cucumber (Cucumis sa-tivus) were categorized based on the weight into three different groups viz., Big (2.41kg), medium (1.66kg) and small (1.28kg). Observations on fruit and seed quality parameters were recorded. The results revealed that medium sized fruits recorded higher values compared to big and small sized fruits. The number of seeds/fruit recorded higher in medium sized fruit (935 numbers) followed by small (896 numbers) and big (876 numbers) sized fruits. The big, medium and small fruits were recovered to 1.52 %, 1.06% and 0.58% seeds respectively. The physiological quality characters measured in terms of seed germination revealed that seeds of medium sized fruits were recorded higher (80%) followed by seeds of big (82%) and small (65%). The seedling vigour measured through root (17.08cm) and shoot length (14.45cm), dry matter production (0.85g 10 seedlings-1 ) and vigour index (2522) also proved the superiority in medium sized fruits.