A new potential variety of cultivated melon ( Cucumis melo L.) from north western India
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NOTES ON NEGLECTED AND UNDERUTILIZED CROPS
A new potential variety of cultivated melon (Cucumis melo L.) from north western India Anjula Pandey . S. Rajkumar
Received: 18 March 2020 / Accepted: 6 August 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract A new potential variety of melon (Cucumis melo L.; family Cucurbitaceae) is described here from Rajasthan, North western India. Detailed description, illustration and photo plate are provided to facilitate identification of this new variety. Keywords Arya Cucumis melo Description Melons New variety
Introduction The genus Cucumis L. consists of 52 species distributed in the tropical regions of the world. In India it is represented by 13 species out of which two species are under cultivation viz. Cucumis sativus L. (common cucumber) and C. melo L. (musk melon) (Pitrat 2008). Wild bitter-fruited [C. melo var. collosus (Rottl.) Cogn. (often misspelled as ‘‘C. callosus’’) is a progenitor of the cultivated melon (C. melo L.). Another wild species, C. melo subsp. agrestis var. A. Pandey (&) Division of Plant Exploration and Germplasm Collection, ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi 110012, India e-mail: [email protected] S. Rajkumar Division of Genomic Resources, ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi 110012, India
agrestis Naudin (kachri) occurs around the common cultivation fields in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and Asia (Chakravarty 1982; Pitrat 2008; Sebastian et al. 2010). It is a monoecious taxon having characteristically very small (less than 5 cm) fruits with bitter flesh. Both the wild species show tremendous variation in the morphological characters. Rich phenotypic, molecular diversity and agronomical variability was recorded within melon landraces in India (Dhillon et al. 2007, 2009). Based on the evidences from recent data on taxonomic and molecular study domestication of melons has been located in the Asian region (Sebastian et al. 2010; https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ articleshow/18925916.cms?from=mdr&utm_source= contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campai gn=cppst). India is the center of origin and diversity of wild and many cultivated melons (Alcazar-Esquinas and Gullick 1983; Gonzalo et al. 2019). While exploring for underutilized Cucumis species in the drier tracts of north-western parts of the country during 2018–2019, a vegetable melon locally called ‘Arya’ was reported from Alwar districts of Rajasthan (Fig. 1). The local farmers of the study area primarily use its fruits in the form of salad, vegetable and dessert. ‘Arya’ has large cylindric or sub-globose fruits which are rich in vitamin C, smooth pericarp and non-bursting of fruit at maturity and aroma like the snap melon (Cucumis melo var. momordica) (Roxb.) Duthie & Fuller or the common musk melon (Cucumis melo var. melo L.). The detailed information on
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cultivation of ‘Arya’ in India was provided by Ahlawat et al. (2018). ‘Arya’ has been denoted by
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