2.4.2. Fruit Growth and Quality Analysis

The parameters studied for fruit growth and quality were total number of fruits/plants, fruit weight per cucumber (g), fruit shape index, total soluble solids (%), fruit dry matter (%), fruit chemical contents, mineral composition and fruit fresh weight (g), length of fruit (cm) & fruit diameter (cm).

The fruit shape index was a ratio between cucumber fruit length and diameter. Total soluble solids (T.S.S %) in fruit juice was measured using hand refractometer. Five samples were analyzed from each scion-rootstock combination [47]. Fruit dry matter (%) was measured through drying 100 g of fresh fruit weight in an oven at 70 ◦C till no further weight reduction condition reached. The contents of ascorbic acid in all grafted and non-grafted fruit were measured by 2,6-dichlorophenol-indophenol method [48]. Bradford G-250 reagent was used to calculate the soluble protein [49] while ninhydrin technique was used to measure total amino acids [50]. Soluble sugar was calculated by anthrone [51]. Fruit mineral composition by the atomic absorption spectrometer (Varian spectra 220) to calculate after dry fruit ashes (550 ◦C) and mixed in 1N HCl. The N and P were observed by Kjeldahl technique and vanado-molybdate phosphoric yellow color method. The fruit fresh weight (g), fruit length (cm) and fruit diameter (cm) were measured right after the first day of fruit development to harvesting (day 1–9).

#### *2.5. Data Processing and Experimental Design*

The experimental data collected were than analyzed statistically using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to evaluate the level of significance. Tukey HSD at 5% level of significance was applied to check the significant difference between values of studied parameter. The complete statistical analysis was performed using Minitab 17 statistical software (Minitab Pty Ltd., Sydney, Australia).


**Table 1.** Treatments, their level and replication for different grafting techniques.
