Maintenance and evaluation of native Round melon germplasm under Hot arid environment

Round melon commonly known as tinda / tensi (Praecitrullus fistulosus) is a potential arid cucurbit. In general, dark-green  and  whitish-green  colour  fruit  type  landraces  are  found  growing  in  traditional  cropping  under  rainfed situations. The tender fruit quality of dark green colour type of local variety (popularly known as Bikaneri Green) is very poor but it is adapted to drought and abiotic stresses including high temperature conditions (44 ⁰ C) of arid region. The tender  fruit  quality  of  whitish-green  colour  type  is  good  for  vegetable  culinary  but  it  is  highly  susceptible  to  high temperature (40- 42 ⁰ C) and abiotic stresses, in addition the plants exhibited slow initial growth, susceptible to mites, viral diseases and high level of fruit fly infestation. The native germplasm was initially collected during 1995 and 1996 from hot spot areas of Nagaur, Churu and Bikaner districts of Rajasthan as regional diversity. The primary material was used over the years for purification and two groups  i.e. AHRM-1 (whitish green type fruits) and AHRM-2 (dark green type fruits) were formed at CIAH and this is native genetic resource for conservation and utilized in hybridization. During 2017, the maintained germplasm was evaluated for 25 parameters and range for characters such as leaf length (7.49-15.38 cm), leaf width (8.84 -18.92 cm), ovary length (0.59- 0.84 cm), ovary width (0.46- 0.73 cm), fruit length (3.52- 5.02 cm), fruit diameter (4.67- 7.11 cm), tender fruit weight (44.82- 120.73 g) and number of fruits / plant (8.47- 17.53) were taken for understanding distinctiveness.