Landraces of snake melon, an ancient Middle Eastern crop, reveal extensive morphological and DNA diversity for potential genetic improvement.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Snake melon (Cucumis melo var. flexuosus, "Faqqous") is a traditional and ancient vegetable in the Mediterranean area. A collection of landraces from 42 grower fields in Israel and Palestinian territories was grown and characterized in a "Common Garden" rain-fed experiment, at the morphological-horticultural and molecular level using seq-DArT markers.

Results

The different landraces ("populations") showed extensive variation in morphology and quantitative traits such as yield and femaleness, and clustered into four horticultural varieties. Yield was assessed by five harvests along the season, with middle harvests producing the highest yields. Yield correlated with early vigor, and with femaleness, but not with late vigor. At the molecular level, 2784 SNP were prod

SUBMITTER: Omari S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5966880 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature