Effects Of Different Number Of Leaves Retained In Pruning On Fruit Yield And Quality Of Muskmelon

Scientific and reasonable pruning technology is one of the key measures to increase the yield and quality of muskmelon,and is also a hot issue in the research of vine cash crop.There are no reports on how to achieve the goal of increasing yield and income of muskmelon by regulating the number of leaves left on the main or sub vines.Therefore,in this study,the conventional cultivated variety’Lvbao’of muskmelon was used as the material to conduct two single factor experiment,namely,only main vine leaves or the sub vine leaves are variable factors.The fruit characteristics of yield,appearance,nutrition,and the key enzyme activities(LOX,ADH,AAT)acting on aroma fatty acid metabolism pathways of flavor substances in muskmelon were measured.The effects of leaf numbers on the main and sub vines of muskmelon on the yield and quality was clarified and the best pruning combination for high yield and quality cultivation of muskmelon was selected.The results of this test are as follows:1.The pruning method of retaining 16 to 24 leaves on the main vine and 1 leaf on the sub vine of muskmelon could achieve high yield,reaching 3623 to 3739 kg/667m~2;When it was determined that the main vine had 24 leaves,the yield of melon decreased with the increase of the number of leaves left on the sub vine,and the yield of the sub vine without leaves is the highest,reaching 3620 kg/667m~2.2.The pruning method with 16 leaves left on the main vine,1 leaf left on the sub vine,and24 leaves left on the main vine,with no leaves left on the sub vine,was beneficial to the improvement of the appearance quality of melon fruit,that is,the fruit pulp had lowest hardness and largest thickness.Moreover,the transverse and longitudinal diameter of the fruit,as well as the fruit type index,were independent of the changes in the number of leaves left.3.The pruning method of retaining 16 leaves on the main vine and 1 leaf on the sub vine resulted in the maximum soluble solids content of muskmelon(10.1%),and the vitamin C content was slightly lower than that of retaining 20 and 24 leaves on the main vine,but the difference was not significant(p>0.05).When the main vine held 24 leaves,the accumulation of soluble solids in muskmelon was inversely proportional to the number of leaves in the sub vine,but there is no significant impact on vitamin C content.4.The pruning method of retaining 16 leaves on the main vine and 1 leaf on the sub vine optimized LOX enzyme activity and ADH enzyme activity,while the AAT enzyme activity did not change with the number of leaves left on the main vine.When the main vine sustained 24leaves,the change in the number of leaves left in the sub vine did not significantly affect the activities of the key enzymes in the above three aroma metabolism pathways.5.We recommended that adopting the pruning method of retaining 16 leaves on the main vine,1 leaf on the sub vine,or 24 leaves on the main vine,with 1 leaf on the sub vine by melon growers could likely achieve a high yield and harvest.