ASSESSMENT OF MORPHOLOGICAL, NUTRITIONAL AND CYTOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SOME NIGERIAN CUCURBITA SPECIES

📄 Project Abstract

Two field experiments were conducted in 2007 and 2008 cropping seasons at the Department of Crop Science research farm, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, to characterize some Nigeria cucurbita genotypes with respect to morphology, nutrient composition and the cytology. The results obtained showed that Shannon diversity index (Hs) was 4.136 which suggests high level of diversity among the Nigerian cucurbita species evaluated. Cucurbita moschata had the highest Shannon diversity index of 1.559 followed by C. maxima (1.474) and C. pepo (1.103) thereby revealing C. moschata as the most diverse. The mature fruit colour, seed colour, immature fruit colour, leafiness, petiole colour recorded high Hs values vis-a-vis the other qualitative descriptors. This is an indication that the above traits contributed meaningfully to the observed diversity in the species. The evenness of C. pepo, C. Maxima and C. moschata were 0.187, 0.250 and 0.265, respectively, suggesting uneven species distribution in th...