Inheritance of sex expression and fruit shape in melon (Cucumis melo L.)

Abstract

Sex expression and its related trait, fruit shape were studied in inter-botanical cross combinations of melon landraces, wild type and cultivated varieties with various fruit shapes and two distinct sex forms. The nine parents and their 18 F1 hybrids, F2 and back crosses of two of the selected cross combinations of oblate, andromonoecious X oval, monoecious and oblate, andromonoecious X cylindrical, monoecious were evaluated for sex expression and fruit shape. All the hybrids of andromonoecious X monoecious parents resulted in all monoecious hybrids with intermediary fruit shape. Andromonoecious hybrid was observed only when both the parents were andromonoecious. Crosses between round fruit type (IC632181) and oblate shaped fruited parents, both with andromonoecious nature resulted in hybrids with round fruits. The Chi square analysis for goodness of fit was non- significant for both sex expression and fruit shape suggesting the dominance of monoecious over andromonoecious and incomplete dominance for fruit shape for oblate X oval and cylindrical fruit types.