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- Author or Editor: Dov Pasternak x
- HortScience x
The increasing salinity of both irrigated lands as well as irrigation water in many parts of the world have emphasized the importance of having appropriate breeding strategies for developing salt tolerant cultivars. In a program to breed for salt tolerance (high yield and good quality at 5,000 ppm salinity) in melons, several breeding strategies were tried. The only systems that succeeded was using combining abilities in a hybrid program. We found that salinity did not effect the number of fruit or fruit quality but only fruit weight. Fruit weight of hybrids grown in fresh water was controlled by dominant genes (h2=0.09) whereas the same hybrids grown under salinity had fruit weight control by additive genes (h2=0.54) Therefore, we were capable of breeding tolerant hybrids from non-tolerant parents.
Twenty melon (Cucumis melo L.) cultigens (cultivars and breeding lines) were tested for salt tolerance. All cultigens were grown in the field using drip irrigation at three salt salinity levels: electrical conductivity (ECw = 1.2, 7.5, or 14.0 dS·m-1. Nineteen of the 20 cultigens proved to be salt-sensitive, as measured by reduction in fruit weight, but not necessarily to the same degree (i.e., some cultigens were tolerant at ECw = 7.5, whereas others were not). One line, `Evan Key', was salt-tolerant at ECw= 14.0. Increasing salinity levels did not affect the number of fruits produced in most cultigens. Overall, increasing salinity reduced netting quality but increased the total soluble solids content and shortened mean time to harvest in seven cultigens.
The increasing salinity of both irrigated lands as well as irrigation water in many parts of the world have emphasized the importance of having appropriate breeding strategies for developing salt tolerant cultivars. In a program to breed for salt tolerance (high yield and good quality at 5,000 ppm salinity) in melons, several breeding strategies were tried. The only systems that succeeded was using combining abilities in a hybrid program. We found that salinity did not effect the number of fruit or fruit quality but only fruit weight. Fruit weight of hybrids grown in fresh water was controlled by dominant genes (h2=0.09) whereas the same hybrids grown under salinity had fruit weight control by additive genes (h2=0.54) Therefore, we were capable of breeding tolerant hybrids from non-tolerant parents.