Table 2.

Morphological and quality traits of netted melon fruit grown under different combinations of cultivar (C), substrate volume (S), and planting density (D).

Cultivar (C)	Substrate volume (L) (S)	Plants/slab (D)	Fruit length (cm)	Fruit diameter (cm)	Fruit shapez	Net gradey	Flesh thickness (mm)
‘Dalgona’	10	3	13.7 ax	13.4 a	1.01 a	1.3 a	40.6 a
		4	13.1 d	13.1 c	0.99 c	1.2 a	39.6 a
	20	3	13.6 b	13.4 a	1.01 a	1.4 a	40.2 a
		4	13.3 c	13.2 b	1.00 b	1.5 a	35.3 b
‘Hero’	10	3	15.5 b	14.3 b	1.10 a	1.3 a	43.0 a
		4	14.9 d	13.8 c	1.09 a	1.2 a	40.1 cd
	20	3	16.0 a	14.4 a	1.07 a	1.4 a	41.0 b
		4	15.1 c	13.8 cd	1.09 a	1.4 a	40.3 c
‘Kingstar’	10	3	15.6 a	14.5 a	1.08 a	1.4 a	39.7 a
		4	14.6 b	14.0 b	1.03 c	1.6 a	39.3 a
	20	3	15.3 a	14.4 a	1.07 a	1.5 a	40.8 a
		4	15.0 a	14.3 a	1.05 b	1.5 a	40.0 a
‘F-test’		C	***	***	***	***	***
		S	***	***	NS	***	***
		D	***	***	***	NS	***
		C×S	***	NS	***	*	***
		C×D	***	***	***	*	***
		S×D	***	NS	***	NS	*
		C×S×D	***	***	NS	NS	***

z Expressed as the ratio of fruit length to fruit diameter. Values closer to 1 indicate a more spherical fruit shape.

y Net grade scale (based on RDA standards): 1 = excellent, 2 = good, 3 = average, 4 = poor, 5 = bad.

x Mean separation within columns by Tukey’s HSD test at P ≤ 0.05.

NS, *, **, ***: Not significant or significant at P < 0.05, 0.01, and 0.001, respectively.