Influence of Seed and Fruit Characteristics of Lagenaria siceraria on Production and Quality of Grafted Watermelon

The use of Lagenaria siceraria rootstocks in watermelon production has favored fruit yield and quality under conditions of environmental stress. However, it is necessary to know if the differential characteristics of fruit and seed L. siceraria are related to watermelon yield and fruit in grafted plant. The objective was to evaluate two dissimilar groups of Mexican L. siceraria as rootstock in Tri-X 33 watermelon variety to relationship the morphological characteristics of rootstock with productive variables and fruit quality. The treatments were Tri-X 313 variety ungrafted and grafted with accessions of group 1 (L46 and L56) and group 2 (L48, L50 and L54). Variables evaluated were fruit and yield and quality parameters. No differences were found between groups of L. siceraria in fruit yield and external quality parameters. With the exception of pulp firmness and luminosity, LG1 surpassed group LG2 by 30.7 and 5.0%, respectively. While, when comparing grafted and ungrafted plants, it was found that grafted plants were superior, with increases of 277.8% in number of fruits per m(2), 330.2% in commercial production, 54.6% in rind thickness, 85.2% in external firmness and 36.3% in chroma value of fruit pulp. Meanwhile, pulp percentage and hue were reduced by 13.8% and 15.5%, respectively, in grafted watermelons. Thus, the seed and fruit characteristics are not sufficient criteria to select L. siceraria rootstocks for watermelon production.