Sugar melon
| Sugar melon | ||||||||||||
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Cantaloupe melon ( Cucumis melo var. Cantalupensis ) |
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| Cucumis melo | ||||||||||||
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The sugar melon or melon ( Cucumis melo ) is a species of plant from the tropics and subtropics, the berries of which are used as fruit .
It is a species from the genus of cucumbers ( Cucumis ), therefore more closely related to the cucumber than to the watermelon , which, like the sugar melon , belongs to the cucurbitaceae family . The sugar melon is very variable, there are very many cultivated forms. Sweet shapes are used as dessert melons, non-sweet shapes like cucumber are used as vegetables.
features
The sugar melon is an annual plant and forms one to five meters long, mostly climbing shoots. However, there are also compact cultivars with short internodes . The shoot axes are round, their hairs are relatively soft compared to the related cucumber . The tendrils are unbranched and stand individually at the nodes . The leaves are eight to 25 inches long and the same width. They are slightly heart-shaped in outline with five rounded corners. The leaf margin is finely serrated. The plants are monoecious , so they form male and female flowers on one plant . However, many cultivars are Andromonözisch (have male and hermaphrodite flowers on a plant). The male flowers are in little-flowered inflorescences , the female are solitary. The calyx-lobes are sub-like and shorter than the calyx-tube. The crown is pale yellow and two to three centimeters in diameter.
The fruit is an oval to round armored berry that can become the size of a head. With large fruits, only one or two are made per plant. The surface differs depending on the variety: smooth with the winter melon, with reticulated cork strips with the reticulated melon and with a warty, bulging surface with longitudinal grooves in the cantaloupe melon . Unripe fruits are hairy, ripe ones are bare. The pulp is green to yellow, also orange, white or pink in color and contains numerous elongated, flattened seeds . There are sweet and non-sweet varieties.
The chromosome number is 2n = 24.
ingredients
The following ingredients are contained in 100 grams of edible fruit: Energy value 231 kJ (54 kcal ), water 86 g, protein 0.9 g, fat 0.1 g, carbohydrates 12.4 g, fiber 0.73 to 0.98 g, organic acids (mainly citric acid , also malic acid ) 0.08 g. Minerals: calcium 13 mg, iron 0.2 mg, potassium 309 mg, magnesium 13 mg, 17 mg sodium, 23 mg phosphorus.
The increase in the sugar content as the fruit ripens is solely due to the increase in the sucrose content, which makes up the majority of the carbohydrates in ripe fruits. The glucose and fructose contents remain essentially constant. Other sugars, such as raffinose and stachyose , which occur as transport substances in the phloem , are not present in the fruits.
The characteristic scent of certain types of melons is created by a mixture of volatile aldehydes , alcohols , esters and acetates (especially benzyl acetate , hexyl acetate and 2-methylbutyl acetate ). Their formation during ripening is controlled by the plant hormone ethylene . Also sulphurous compounds is attributed an important role in the overall flavor.
distribution
There are wild forms in natural habitats from Southwest Africa to South, East and Northeast Africa, in Southwest, South-Central and South Asia as well as Australia. They have different names, but hybridization and isoenzyme studies have shown that they are all of African origin. It remains unclear whether the melon became a cultivated plant in Africa or South / East Asia. Domestication probably took place in parallel on both continents. In Egypt seeds have been found from around 3800-3550 BC. Near Hierakonpolis (Nubian Desert), others from China (around 3000 BC), from Iran (3000 BC). The oldest documents on the European continent come from Greece (approx. 1400-900 BC); Tiryns (Late Bronze Age), Kastanas (Early Iron Age).
Ancient texts - references: clans / varieties: Pliny XIX (23) 67, soil: Pall. IV 9.6, seed preparation, sowing time: Pall. IV 9.6; Geoponika XII 20, diet (see also gourd): Galen II 5, recipes: Apicius III 7.
The sugar melon is grown today worldwide in the tropics and subtropics, where there are a large number of varieties and varieties regionally. The natural distribution area is assumed to be in the tropics of Central and Western Asia. A manifold center is in India. It is believed to have been grown in the Mediterranean region since ancient times.
Wild melons are found mainly in Africa and Asia, but also in Australia and the Pacific region. Melons feral very easily in the areas where they are grown. For Austria it is stated that although it rarely and inconsistently wilds, it then prefers to land on sewage sludge.
use
The yields vary between 4 and 50 tons per hectare and year.
The world annual harvest in 2006 was 27.6 million tons. The largest producing countries were China (15.5 million tons), Turkey (1.8 million tons), USA (1.2 million tons), Iran (1.1 million tons) and Spain (1.0 million tons). The sugar melon ranks sixth among the commercially produced vegetables. In addition to Spain, Romania, Italy and France are also larger growing countries in Europe. In 2003 melons were grown on 70 hectares in Germany.
The high proportion of vitamins A and C in some varieties is beneficial for human nutrition, as is the lithium and zinc content. The content of vitamin E, folic acid, iron and calcium is low compared to other fruits and vegetables.
Different sorts
In Europe, sugar melons are divided into three major groups:
- Winter melons are relatively large (1.5 to 3 kg), have no odor and are very sweet. These include the 'Amarillo liso', 'Piel de Sapo', 'Tendral' and ' Yellow Canary ' ( honeydew melon). They ripen late and have a long shelf life. In contrast to the other two groups, the fruits do not ripen .
- Net melons are fragrant and have a relatively long shelf life. They include 'Wester Shipper', the two 'Easter Shipper', 'Honey Dew' and the ' Galia '.
- Cantaloupe melons are fragrant and usually do not keep for long. These include the Charentais and 'Ogen'.
In EU publications , the species Cucumis melo is generally referred to as melon. Within the EU, the indication of the commercial type of melons is mandatory, the indication of the variety is voluntary. The marketing standard (regulation EG 1615/2001, last amended by EG 1016/2006) defines the minimum sizes and minimum sugar content.
The OECD differentiates the following 16 types of melon based on fruit characteristics. The German names follow the German Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food:
- Pineapple melon (Ananas d'Amérique, Persian reticulated melon)
- Baskavas
- Branco
- Western Shipper (rock melon, American net melon, cantaloupe melon)
- Yellow Eastern Shipper (Yellow Italian Net Melon, Supermarket)
- Green Eastern Shipper (Green Italian Net Melon)
- Yellow Canary (Yellow Honeydew Melon, Amarillo, Tendral Amarillo)
- Yellow Charentais
- Green Charentais
- Galia
- Honey Dew
- Kirkagac, Kurkash, Hidir
- Ogen
- Piel de Sapo (or Futuro Melon)
- Rochet
- Tendral, Yuva
In India there is a large number of unsweet land races, which are prepared in different variants as vegetables similar to the cucumber: in "Phoot" (var. Momordica ) the fruits tear open to maturity and have a floury, sour flesh; "Kakri" is used as a cucumber; "Vellarikkai" is grown especially in Kerala and can be stored for several months; Dosa Kaya is eaten cooked as a vegetable; Kachri is a semi-wild form with small fruits weighing 60 to 70 grams, which are dried and used as a garnish for vegetable dishes.
In Japan , hybrid varieties (F1 hybrids) are mainly grown. There are four main types:
- Green-fleshed net melons: with 'Crown Melon', this includes the most expensive variety at up to US $ 200 per fruit. It is grown exclusively in greenhouses and tastes particularly sweet
- Red fleshed melons:
- Smooth- skinned melons: these include the Makuwa (var. Makuwa ), which are already known in poems from the 8th century AD.
- Oriental Pickling Melon (var. Conomon ) is not sweet and is processed unripe into pickled vegetables called "asa-zuke" and "nara-zuke". Until the 19th century, they were more popular than cucumbers in Japan.
- Unripe harvested melons, about the size of a fist and dark green, are marketed in Germany as a seasonal vegetable in early autumn under the Turkish name "Kelek". The taste is reminiscent of cucumbers, but they are firmer and slightly sweet and are eaten like this: raw, braised or pickled.
Systematics
In the traditional classification, the sugar melon is grouped with some African species ( Cucumis hirsutus, Cucumis humifructus and Cucumis sagittatus ). Phylogenetic studies, however, showed that the melon belongs to a clade with Asian and Australian species.
The number of melon varieties is extremely large. In the EU alone, over 500 varieties are approved for cultivation.
There are different classifications within the species. Basic works are that of Naudin in 1859 and that of Pangalo in 1929. Pangalo has listed the species as its own genus Melo with several sections and a dozen species. The later taxonomists built on the work of Naudin and Pangalo. A simple system is that of Munger and Robinson 1991, who divide the species into six varieties ( agrestis, cantalupensis, inodorus, flexousus, conomon, chito, momordica ).
The following classification is based on the proposal by Pitrat et al. 2000:
- Subspecies Cucumis melo
L. subsp. agrestis (Naudin) Pangalo : With short hair on the
ovary
- Variety conomon Thunberg
- Variety makuwa Makino
- Variety chinensis Pangalo
- Variety momordica Roxburgh
- Variety acidulus Naudin
- Subspecies Cucumis melo L. subsp. melo : With long hair on the ovary
- Variety cantalupensis Naudin
- Variety reticulatus
- Variety adana pangalo
- Variety chandalak pangalo
- Variety ameri pangalo
- Variety inodorus Jacquin
- Variety flexuosus L.
- Variety chate Hasselsquist
- Variety tibish Mohamed
- Variety dudaim L.
- Chito Morren variety
Phylogenetic analyzes have confirmed essentially the breakdown of Munger and Robinson: the cultivars of "Western" varieties cantalupensis and inodorus were clearly separated from the rest, mostly non-sweet varieties. The two varieties were also essentially different from one another, but some varieties were grouped in the other clade. The other varieties were also essentially recognizable as separate clades.
history
The domestication of the sugar melon goes back to 3000 BC. Estimated. Around 2000 BC It is believed to have been cultivated in ancient Egypt , as well as in Mesopotamia, East Iran and China, and in India around 1000 BC. It was also known in ancient Greece and Rome. In medieval Europe, the seeds and juice of Cucumis melo were also used as a medicinal ingredient.
In the European languages there are three roots of the word for the sugar melon, which is why there are three independent introductions in Europe: “Melon” or similar in all Romance and Germanic languages as well as Polish, Czech, Slovenian and Finnish; “Pepo” in Romanian, πεπόνι in Greek, “pjepër” in Albanian, “papesh” in Bulgarian and regionally in Italian; “Dinja” in Russian and Serbo-Croatian and “dinnye” in Hungarian, which is derived from the Latin cydonea (quince, yellow apple).
Common names
The other German-language trivial names Bäbenen ( Middle High German ), Beben, Beben (Middle High German), Befe (Middle High German), Biboz ( Old High German ), Cantalupe (in the sense of Netzmelon), Erdapfel, Erdaphel ( Middle Low German ), Erdaphil exist or existed for the sugar melon (Middle Low German), Erdapphel (Middle Low German), Erdeaphel (Middle Low German), Erdeapphel (Middle Low German), Errapphel (Middle High German), Melaum ( Austria ), Melaun (Middle Low German), Meloen (Middle Low German), Melone (Middle High German), Melonen (Middle High German), Melonen (Middle High German) , Melun (Middle High German), Melwen (Middle High German), Meylon (Middle High German), Pademe (Middle Low German), Päddem ( Siebenbürgen ), Paden (Transylvania), Pebenun (Old High German), Pedem, Pedeme, Pedemen, Pedo (Old High German), Pedome (Old High German ), Pepano (Old High German), Petuna (Old High German), Peydame (Middle High German), Pfädem (Middle High German), Pfedemmen (Middle High German) , Pfemyn (Old High German), Poben, Pheddan (Old High German), Pheden (Old High German), Phedern, Piboz (Old High German), Plotzer ( Upper German ), Plützer (Upper German), Zackerpädden (Transylvania) and Zärti ( Vienna ).
literature
- RW Robinson, DS Decker-Walters: Cucurbits . CAB International, Wallingford 1997, pp. 65-70. ISBN 0-85199-133-5 (features)
- Susanne Huyskens-Keil: Sugar melons. Cultivation, quality, processing and storage . Ulmer, Stuttgart 2007. ISBN 978-3-8001-4575-1
- Michel Pitrat, Peter Hanelt, Karl Hammer: Some comments on infraspecific classification of cultivars of melon . In: N. Katzir, HS Paris: Proceedings of 7th EUCARPIA Meeting on Cucurbit Genetics and Breeding . Acta Horticulturae, Volume 510, 2000, pp. 29-36. ISBN 90-6605-852-8 (systematics)
Web links
- Thomas Meyer: Data sheet with identification key and photos at Flora-de: Flora von Deutschland (old name of the website: Flowers in Swabia )
- Genome decoded
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nutritional value, vitamin and mineral information. Lebensmittel-Warenkunde.de, accessed on March 8, 2011 .
- ^ Yosef Burger et al .: The contribution of sucrose to total sugar content in melons . In: N. Katzir, HS Paris: Proceedings of 7th EUCARPIA Meeting on Cucurbit Genetics and Breeding . Acta Horticulturae, Volume 510, 2000, pp. 479-485. ISBN 90-6605-852-8
- ↑ Moshe Shalit et al .: Aroma formation in muskmelons: volatile acetates in ripening fruits . In: N. Katzir, HS Paris: Proceedings of 7th EUCARPIA Meeting on Cucurbit Genetics and Breeding . Acta Horticulturae, Volume 510, 2000, pp. 455-461. ISBN 90-6605-852-8
- ^ A b Wolfgang Franke: Nutzpflanzenkunde. Usable crops of temperate latitudes, subtropics and tropics. 4th edition. Thieme, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-13-530404-3 .
- ^ Manfred A. Fischer , Karl Oswald, Wolfgang Adler: Excursion flora for Austria, Liechtenstein and South Tyrol. 3rd, improved edition. State of Upper Austria, Biology Center of the Upper Austrian State Museums, Linz 2008, ISBN 978-3-85474-187-9 .
- ↑ FAOSTAT , "other melons (incl. Cantaloupes), accessed March 31, 2008.
- ↑ Susanne Huyskens-Keil: Sugar melons. Cultivation, quality, processing and storage , 2007, p. 16.
- ↑ Susanne Huyskens-Keil: Sugar melons. Cultivation, quality, processing and storage , 2007, p. 11.
- ↑ http://www.ble.de/cln_042/nn_470548/sid_1A61939C398E864C1B74E7CE2FBD39CF/nsc_true/DE/02__Kontrolle__Zulassung/01__Qualitaetskontrolle/01__Vermarktungsnormen/ObstundGemueseFrue.html not available ?__nnn=true.html
- ↑ a b page of the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food ( memento of July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed April 6, 2008.
- ↑ OECD: International Standardization of Fruit and Vegetables. Melons . OECD Publishing, 2006, ISBN 978-92-64-02255-3 (online)
- ↑ VS Seshandri, TA More: Indian Land Races in Cucumis melo . In: S. Nishimura et al .: Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Cucurbits . Acta Horticulturae, Volume 588, 2001, pp. 187-192. ISBN 90-6605-776-9
- ^ Y. Sakata, M. Sugiyama: Characteristics of Japanese Cucurbits . In: S. Nishimura et al .: Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Cucurbits . Acta Horticulturae, Volume 588, 2001, pp. 195-199. ISBN 90-6605-776-9
- ↑ Susanne S Renner, Hanno Schaefer, Alexander Kocyan: Phylogenetics of Cucumis (Cucurbitaceae): Cucumber (C. sativus) belongs in an Asian / Australian clade far from melon (C. melo) BMC Evolutionary Biology 2007, Volume 7, 58. doi : 10.1186 / 1471-2148-7-58
- ↑ Susanne Huyskens-Keil: Sugar melons. Cultivation, quality, processing and storage , 2007, p. 9.
- ↑ a b A. Stepansky, I. Kovalski, R. Perl-Treves: Intraspecific classification of melons (Cucumis melo L.) in view of their phenotypic and molecular variation . Plant Systematics and Evolution, Volume 217, 1999, pp. 313-332. doi : 10.1007 / BF00984373
- ↑ Paul Diepgen : Gualtari Agilonis Summa medicinalis. According to the Munich Cod. La. Nos. 325 and 13124 edited for the first time with a comparative consideration of older medical compendia from the Middle Ages. Leipzig 1911, p. 68.
- ↑ Volker Zimmermann: The Heidelberg Pharmacopoeia Ysack Leuj. Contributions of Jewish Doctors to Medieval Medicine. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-515-12174-3 , p. 62 f.
- ↑ Ulrich Stoll (Ed.): The 'Lorsch Pharmacopoeia'. A medical compendium of the 8th century (Codex Bambergensis medicinalis 1): text, translation and technical glossary. Stuttgart 1992 (= Sudhoffs Archiv, supplement 28), p. 438.
- ↑ M. Pitrat, M. Chauvet, C. Foury: Diversity, history and production of cultivated cucurbits . In: K. Abak, S. Büyükalaca: Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Cucurbits . Acta Horticultae, Volume 492, 1999. ISSN 0567-7572
- ^ Georg August Pritzel , Carl Jessen : The German folk names of plants. New contribution to the German linguistic treasure. Philipp Cohen, Hannover 1882, p. 119 ( online ).