STUDIES ON PRIORITY OF MELON FRUITS TRAITS ASSOCIATED WITH EGYPTIAN CONSUMER PREFERENCE

Abstract

It is noted that most F 1 hybrids droved from native Egyptian inbred lines, preformed a very favorable fruit for ordinary Egyptian consumers whom, tended to prefer tasteful, odor and aromatic fruits. On contrary, many Egyptians are not satisfied with taste and odor of many commercial imported hybrids. To define the reason, correlation analysis between some fruit quality traits and panel test results of melon flesh visual and eating quality were conducted. Fruits of six inbred lines and their fifteen F 1 hybrids resulted from half diallel crosses as well as three commercial hybrids used as a reference, were adapted in this investigation. The obtained results showed that, there was a highly significant positive correlation between reducing sugars percent (RS), total soluble solid (TSS)/total acidity (TA) ratio, RS/TA ratio, as well as total sugars (TS)/TA ratio with favorable taste and general acceptance. Meanwhile, a highly significant negative correlation was obtained between TA, nonreducing sugars content (NRS) with favorable taste and general acceptance. On the other hand, a highly significant negative correlation was also observed between flesh color degree, whiteness (L) and redness (a) values with favorable color and general acceptance. It could be concluded from panel test, and correlation analysis that Egyptian consumers prefer melon fruits flesh with TSS from 12 to 15% consists mostly of reducing sugars content from 8.7 to 10.1%, associated with low nonreducing sugars percent from 2.8 to 4.3. Also very low acidity contents 0.16 to 0.18% is the most preferred. As for flesh color, the results illustrated that Egyptian consumers prefer melon flesh with lower whiteness (L) value from 30.9 to 42.3 associated with redness (a) from 10.6 to 8.9 and higher yellowness (b) value 27.6 to 41.5. The best rating entries for flesh taste were associated with TSS/TA ratio from 62.7 to 88.2 and RS/TA from 41.5 to 59.2; however the best color was associated with L/b ratio from 0.79 to 1.37.