GENETIC RELATIONSHIPS OF EDIBLE SEED WATERMELONS ON PHENOTYPIC CHARACTERISTICS AND RAPD ANALYSIS

Thirty-four cultivars or strains including 4 edible seed watermelons, 2 wild watermelons and the different ecology type of flesh watermelons were evaluated for genetic relationships using the data of characteristics of plant in growth period and the fruit, the seed size, RAPD mark and cluster analysis.
The results showed that the seed size, development period of fruit and soluble solid content of flesh etc. of ‘Jingyuandaban’ had obvious differences from flesh watermelons, most of them were extreme type.
The other 3 cultivars of edible seed watermelons, ‘Neimengbaiguazi’, ‘Ninghong’ and ‘Xinhong’, also had similar differences from the flesh watermelon but the range of differences was smaller; 16 random primers were used in this study revealing 157 RAPD markers in the 34 cultivars.
A total of 67 (42.68%) of the 157 RAPD markers were polymorphic. 34 cultivars or strains were classified into two sub-groups, which were cultivars and wild types, the genetics distances of most cultivars were small.
The genetic distances between edible seed watermelon and flesh watermelon were not beyond the biggest genetic distance among flesh watermelons.
That meant that edible seed watermelons were not suitable as an independent varia¬tion from flesh watermelon (var. vulgaris of sp. Vulgaris (Schrad.) Fursa.).

IV International Symposium on Cucurbits

Jiannong Zhang, Guifen Zhang

flesh watermelons, stomata quantity in leaf, width and length of seed, variation, cluster analysis, genetics distances

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2010.871.8