Multipurpose Pumpkin Improvement: A Guide for Characterisation, Evaluation, Production and Value Addition

Description

This book is expressly penned for all readers who are passionate about plant landraces that remain neglected in communties, owing to lack of awareness about their immense food and nutritional potential. The first author having observed pumpkin undergo this treatment from a very young age up to when she had developed her career to become a university professor of horticulture decided to do something about this fruit-vegetable so as to raise it from a neglected and under-utilized species to a commercializable crop. She was awed by the way the local pumpkin could be found growing all over homesteads and roadsides but as a volunteer crop, and yet once nicely grown with luscious leaves and fruits the households near it could not hesitate to pluck its leaves and fruits, cook and help themselves to them sumptuously. It left her wondering why pumpkin could not be developed into a commercial crop. She then conceptualised the studies that generated information captured in this book for utilization by all interested parties to develop this crop into a gold mine. The information is adaptable for large-scale cultivation, production, commercialisation, seed-bulking, fruit processing into flour or snacks, widespread household utilization, as well as further improvement, breeding, germplasm conservation and development of new cultivars for this under-utilized, yet highly nutrient-rich and promising fruit-vegetable. The book is ideal as a textbook for university students, lecturers, horticulturists, plant breeders, biodiversity conservators, biotechnologists, food scientists, as well as leisure readership.

Dorcas K. Isutsa is a holder of: 2005 Fellowship Certificate, University of Reading, UK, 2004 Biosafety & Biotechnology Certificate, Wageningen IAC; 1998 Ph.D. in Horticulture & 1993 M.Sc. in Pomology, Cornell University, USA, 1990 a B.Sc. in Horticulture, Egerton University, Kenya. Her academic career spans: 15th Sep. 2013-date, Full Professor; October 2003-Sep. 2013, Associate Professor; June 1999-Sep. 2003, Senior Lecturer; Feb. 1997-May 1999, Lecturer; June 1993-1997, Assistant Lecturer; Oct. 1990-May 1993, Teaching Assistant, Egerton University; 1991-1998, Graduate Assistant, Cornell University. She has held professional positions in university middle and top management from 2001 to 2023. Her research interests entail plant management, value addition, and biotechnology. Besides editing and contributing to authoring this book, she is an accomplished academician, author and winner of awards, scholar, editor and founder of journals. She has also authored five other books on: Plant propagation: A teaching resource packet; Seed and micropropagated passion fruits; Essentials of temperate-zone fruits; Online study skills guide: An essential guide for students; and How not to perish: A family’s anecdotes.