Tropical and subtropical vegetables (2+1)

Marketing and storage

• Most of the cucurbits do not stand long transportation. Watermelon is transported in trucks without any individual packing and are liable to bruises and damage during transmit.Especially in rainy season crops or crops damaged by summer rains, fly attacked fruits would be considerable which will have to be culled out before sending to market.
•  Anthracnose affected fruits of watermelon are of poor quality. Being highly perishable, marketing of cucurbits involve risks and losses and hence cultivation of these vegetables are more concentrated around metropolitan cities. Watermelons require careful handling as they are easily damaged and they cannot be stored more than 2-3 weeks.Some far flung river bed growing supply watermelon to the distant markets.