CHAPTER ONE 1.0 INRODUCTION Egusi Melon Is a Well Known Vegetable Crop in West Africa
CHAPTER ONE 1.0 INRODUCTION Egusi melon is a well known vegetable crop in West Africa. It is commonly grown for its consumable seeds popularly called “Egusi” in Yoruba language (Adewusi et al., 2000; van der Vossen et al., 2004). The crop’s family is cucurbitaceae (Schippers, 2000). Three genera of this family are referred to as melon and these are Cucumis, Citrullus and Cucumeropsis. Common examples of these genera in Nigeria are Cucumis melo L. (true melon), Citrullus lanatus Thunb. Matsum and Nakai (Watermelon) and Citrullus lanatus (Thumb) Mansf. (Brown-seeded Egusi melon) and Cucumeropsis mannii Naud. (syn. C. edulis (Hooker f.) cogn.). The species of the genus Lagenaria (gourd melons) used for Egusi melon is Lagenaria abyssinica (Ajuru and Okoli, 2013). Egusi melon is a creeping, hairy, herbaceous annual crop (Agba et al., 2009). It originated from Africa, and usually intercropped with yams, sorghum and cassava (Adewusi et al., 2000; Agba, 2004). In Africa, Nigeria is the highest producer of melon with 581,344 tonnes over an area of 999,618 ha with an average yield of 581.6 kg/ha followed by Republic of Congo (62,039 tonnes) and Cameroun (53,064 tonnes) (FAO, 2017). The world total production has been put at about 962,301 tonnes, with Africa as the highest producer in the world, producing about 894,178 tonnes followed by Asia (63,039 tonnes) (FAO, 2017). It is drought tolerant and grown in commercial quantity in Southwest Nigeria, especially in some parts of Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Ekiti states where its seeds serve as soup condiments (Kehinde, 2011).
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