Studies on growth and yield of two muskmelon cultivars (Ananas and Chinese cvs) with using the different water quantities (100% and 75% of field capacity, and two irrigation systems (surface and drip irrigation) were carried out during two successive seasons (1999 and 2000). The results showed that using surface irrigation was in favor for producing the highest values of plant height, dry/fresh ratio %, number of branches/plant, leaf area/plant, number of leaves/plant number of fruits/plant, average fruit weight, fruit height, fruit diameter, total yield and T.S.S %, while the water quantity with 100% of field capacity gave the best results for all the vegetative growth and yield parameters.
However, the Ananas cultivar gave the best result, for all vegetative growth, and yield comparison with Chinese cultivars. While the interaction between cultivars and water quantities, showed that 100% water of field capacity gave the highest values for all vegetative growths, while Ananas cv with 100% water of field capacity was the best results for yield measures. However the treatment Chinese cultivar with surface irrigation gave the highest values for plant height, D/F ratio %, number of branches/plant, number of fruit/plant, fruit height and total yield kg/m2, while the Chinese cultivar gave the best results with surface irrigation for fruit weight and fruit diameter in both seasons,. However, TSS% was the highest value with Ananas cultivar with drip irrigation.
Interaction between water quantities and irrigation system showed that the treatment 100% at field capacity with surface irrigation gave the highest values for all vegetative growths and yield parameters except TSS %, while TSS% was highest values after using 75% of field capacity with drip irrigation.
Finally, it is possibly suggested that surface irrigation with Ananas cultivar with 100% at field capacity could be useful for enhancing the yield at muskmelon. However, it can be concluded that the drip irrigation with 75 % of water field capacity was the recommended treatment for minimizing irrigation water quantity under Al-Hassa Oasis conditions.