Articles
STUDIES ON HYBRID CUCUMBER AND MELON BREEDING
Almost all varieties for this purpose are of foreign origin except for a few cucumber varieties.
Breeding programs were started in 1981 for cucumber and in 1988 for melon.
The heterosis breeding method was used to develop new varieties.
As a result of these studies, two hybrid cucumber varieties were registered with the name of Ekiz 22 F1, Agam 2 F1 and three melon varieties were registered with the name of Coskun 1071 F1, Öztürk 1453 F1, Dirgit 1176 F1 in 1995.
Our new breeding targets are being determined by grower and consumer needs.
We have three different programs for cucumber varieties where we concentrate on different characteristics.
The three programs focus on Spring season varieties, Fall season varieties and Winter season varieties.
Within each program parameters such as productivity, yield, virus tolerance, heat and cold tolerance have been assessed.
Besides these characteristics, we are looking for yield reliability under stress conditions, disease resistance / tolerance (DM, PM, CMV), fruit quality and flavour, storability, base colour in all programs.
The objectives of our melon breeding program are: earliness both for open field and protected crop production, excellent flavour and aroma with high sugar content, firm fruits for transportation and storage, disease resistance/tolerance (PM, DM, F, ZYMV) and economic production of seed.