The total sugar content of pumpkin fruit significantly (P <
Zinash et al. 7095
0.001) varied among the fruit accessions (Table 2). In this study, the total sugar content of the accessions ranged between 2.178 to 9.0 g 100g -1 fresh weight. Pumpkin accession 8007 recorded significantly higher total sugar (9.0 g 100g -1) than all the accessions except accession 8007 and 4707. Pumpkin fruit accession number 3907 had the lowest total sugar content. Similar to that of DM and TSS, the top four accessions (accession 8007, 7607, 4707 and 4007) had about 62% more total sugar over the average of all accessions while accession 1307 recorded the least values total sugar. The result of this study agrees with the findings of Sudhakar et al. (2003) who reported that reducing sugar content of pumpkin fruit significantly varied from cultivar to cultivar. Cantwell and Suslow (1998) also reported variations in total sugar contents among 36 varieties of pumpkin and indicated that sugar is the major component of TSS and it determines the flavor and sensory quality of pumpkin fruit.
Analysis of variance also revealed significant difference (P < 0.001) in the reducing sugar content of the pumpkin fruit accessions (Table 2). The reducing sugar content of the accessions ranged between 1.074 and 5.663 g 100g-1. Pumpkin accession 4707 had the highest reducing sugar content which was followed by pumpkin accession 7607 (5.235 g 100 g-1) while pumpkin accession 3907 had the lowest reducing sugar content. The result of reducing sugar in this study agrees with the finding of Murakami et al. (1992) and Culpepper and Moon (1945) who reported pumpkin fruit sugar content especially reducing sugar have high relation with sweetness of the fruit. Correlation analysis also showed that reducing sugar content of the pumpkin fruit accessions was strongly associated with TSS (r = 0.903), total sugar (r =0.941) and DM (r = 0.919). The reason for positive correlations of reducing sugar to these parameters was that reducing sugar is a component of total sugar and TSS. Reducing sugar is also the substrate from which TA is synthesized within the fruit (Sakiyama and S