| Abstract | Production and area harvested of melon including cantaloupe plants have potential to increase its production worldwide in the future. Under conditions where water scarcity or drought stress poses a great constraint to agricultural production, its potential regarding to increasing production and area harvested needs to be exploited. In order to maintain food production, it is required a particular effort or technology to cope with the drought stress constraints. Irrigation management and application of Si fertilizer are considered as factors to alleviate drought stress. Both applications of deficit irrigation and fertilizer of Si have positive impacts on the plant growth, yield and quality in some crops. However, the knowledge and correlation between drought stress and fertilization of Si with the growth, yield and fruit quality of cantaloupe are not well established. Therefore, a pot experiment in the greenhouse was conducted to investigate the effects of Si on the growth, yield, and quality of cantaloupe under drought stress. The experiment was carried out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with two factors, four replicates, and each treatment consists of one sample. The first factor was four Si doses (0, 100, 200, and 400 kg ha-1 ) and the second factor was three levels of soil moisture regimes (50, 75, and 100 % field capacity). The result showed significant differences and interactions in the fruit weight, fruit diameter, flesh thickness, and irrigation water productivity. Si doses significantly increased plant growth parameters, i.e., plant height, number of leaf plant-1 , root dry matter, and shoot dry matter, increased in yield and quality parameters, i.e., fruit height, flesh thickness, fruit weight, and soluble solid content compared with no Si application. Reducing in soil moisture regimes imposed significantly decline in plant growth (plant height, number of leaf plant-1 , number of node plant-1 , root dry matter, and shoot dry matter), yield and quality parameters (fruit height, fruit diameter, flesh thickness, and fruit weight). Based on the present finding, application of Si at 200 kg ha-1 improved plant growth, yield and quality of cantaloupe and application of soil moisture regime at 75 % FC is possible to apply in cantaloupe plant. The strong relationship between fruit weight with plant growth parameters (plant height, number of leaf plant-1 , number of node plant-1 , root dry matter and shoot dry matter), yield and quality parameters (fruit height, fruit diameter, flesh thickness, irrigation water productivity, and leaf chlorophyll content) were observed. There were significant and positive correlations between fruit weight with plant height, number of leaf plant-1 , number of node plant-1 , root dry matter, shoot dry matter, fruit height, fruit diameter, and flesh thickness. There were 5 parameters (fruit diameter, fruit height, root dry matter, days taken to first flowering, and number of leaf) showed positive effects and soluble solid content parameters revealed as a negative effect with the yield with the total affected around 96.2 %. Fruit diameter and fruit height were two main parameters affected yield with the higher total affected around 95.1 %. |
