ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION Cucumber and melon are important fruit vegetables belonging to the family Cucurbitaceae, which consists of 90 genera and 750 species (1). Cucurbits, being warm season crops, are of tropical origin and grown mostly in Africa, tropical America, and Asia, mainly Southeast Asia (2). Most cucurbits are climbing or prostrate dicotyledonous plants of the tropics, subtropics, and milder regions of the temperate zones. Most are herbaceous annuals and some are perennials, but all are frost-sensitive. Cucurbits are grown mostly for their fruits, however, the shoot and flowers of some species are used as food. They play an important role in supplying fresh fruit vegetables during the summer season in many tropical countries. This group consists of a wide range of vegetables used as salad (cubumber), for cooking purposes (all the gourds), as dessert fruits (muskmelon and watermelon), and as candied or preserved products (ash gourd). They are mostly seed-propagated, although a few are vegetatively propagated like pointed gourd (Parwal) and a few perennials like chow-chow and dry gourd (3). The cucurbits are grown for their ripe or unripe fruits, which are a good source of carbohydrates, vitamin A, ascorbic acid, and minerals.
