Skip to main content
ARS Home » Southeast Area » Charleston, South Carolina » Vegetable Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #222871
Title: Progress in the Development of Crimson Sweet-type Watermelon Breeding Lines with Resistance to Acidovorax Avenae Subsp. Citrulli

Author
item HOPKINS, D - UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
item Levi, Amnon

Submitted to: Acta Horticulturae
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/27/2008
Publication Date: 5/19/2008
Citation: Hopkins, D., Levi, A. 2008. Progress in the Development of Crimson Sweet-type Watermelon Breeding Lines with Resistance to Acidovorax Avenae Subsp. Citrulli. Acta Horticulturae. P157-162. In: M. Pitrat (ed.). Proceedings of the IX EUCARPIA Meetings on Genetics and Breeding of Cucurbitaceae. INRA.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Bacterial fruit blotch (Acidovorax avenae subsp. citrulli [Schaad et al.] Willems et al.) continues to occur almost every year and has the potential to cause a disaster for the watermelon industry. In this study, Crimson Sweet watermelon was crossed with PI482279 and PI494817, two Citrullus lanatus [Thunb.] Matsum. & Nakai accessions shown to be resistant to A. acidovorax subsp. citrulli in previous work. Disease ratings of F1 and F2 populations from these two crosses suggested to us that the resistance is conferred by more than one gene and that the mode of inheritance may be complex. Resistant F2 plants from each of these two crosses were used in a backcrossing program with Crimson Sweet to obtain good horticultural characteristics in a resistant breeding line. Resistant plants with good horticultural characteristics were obtained in the third backcross progeny from each of the accessions. The development of bacterial fruit blotch resistant breeding lines with uniform resistance and good horticultural characteristics should be available after 3-4 more selfed generations of the BC3 progeny.