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Washing oriental melon (Cucumismelo var. makuwa Makino) is a standard procedure because it facilitates the precise elimination of defective fruit, such as fruit having internal decay symptoms, and also facilitates easier handling of fruit by the elimination of gummy substances on the fruit surface. In most fresh fruits and vegetables, however, washing has never been recommended unless it is related to other practices, such as waxing or immediate processing. Harvested oriental melons were placed in a big water tank and washed with a brush machine immediately before grading, using an automatic grader. Fruit that had sunk down to the bottom of the tank were discarded, as they were premature-fermented fruit with no commercial value. Fruit, intact or washed, were treated with 1-MCP at 0.5–2.0 ppm for 12 hours and stored at room temperature for 3 weeks. Flesh firmness, soluble solids contents, fruit petiole color, and changes of surface suture color were measured to evaluate storability of the fruit. The washed fruit exhibited poor skin color and early suture-browning as compared to the non-washed fruit, regardless of 1-MCP pretreatment. 1-MCP treatment was also effective in maintaining fresh fruit quality as compared to the non-treated fruit. 1-MCP effects were, however, more pronounced in relatively smaller and less mature fruit as compared to the fully mature fruit. 1-MCP was also effective in maintaining white suture color, the most important visual factor currently used for quality evaluation in oriental melon.
Double-stemmed seedlings (DSS) will be favored by the growers because they can save the expense needed to purchase commercial seedlings. This is also true with grafted tomatoes since the price of grafted tomato seedlings is about 2 times higher than non-grafted ones. The plug seedling growers will also benefit from the increased demand for DSS if the production cost for DSS can be maintained at appropriate level. Two stem cuttings having two expanded leaves were taken from a seedling when the seedling had four expanded leaves and rooted in 32-cell trays filled with commercial soil mix. Lower stem cuttings having first and second leaves produced well-balanced DSS even without any plant bioregulator treatment whereas up upper stem cuttings having third and fourth leaves resulted in single-stem seedlings with very limited outgrowth of axillary shoot from the third node. DSS can be obtained from the decapitated seedling stump by outgrowth of axillary shoots from the cotyledonary nodes, but the quality and uniformity were inferior to other seedlings. Pinching off the tips of seedlings thus leaving three expanded leaves per seedling and application of plant bioregulators to the decapitated seedlings were also effective for producing DDS. Application of thidiazuron (TDZ) in lanolin paste to the second node was most effective even though whole plant spray with TDZ or BA was also partially effective. Subsequent growth characteristics of these seedlings will be further discussed.