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Horticulturae
Special Issues
Germplasm and Breeding Innovations in Cucurbitaceous Crops
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Germplasm and Breeding Innovations in Cucurbitaceous Crops

A special issue of Horticulturae (ISSN 2311-7524). This special issue belongs to the section "Genetics, Genomics, Breeding, and Biotechnology (G2B2)".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 March 2025 | Viewed by 3147

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Huasen Wang

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Guest Editor
College of Horticulture, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao 266109, China
Interests: molecular biology of vegetables; vegetable growth and development; ideotype; sex differentiation; plant biotic and abiotic stresses; mineral element absorption
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Li Miao

E-Mail
Guest Editor
College of Horticulture, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao 266109, China
Interests: grafting; vegetables
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cucurbitaceous crops, including watermelons (Citrullus lanatus), melons (Cucumis melo), cucumbers (Cucumis sativus), and pumpkin and squash (Cucurbita spp.) crops, are one of the most genetically diverse plant families and contain several health-promoting substances and play a vital role in sustaining human life. With the worsening of the global environment, the fast growth of the global population, and the improvement in people's living standards, the market demand for high-quality cucurbitaceous crops in large quantities is expanding dramatically. There is a wide genetic variation among cucurbitaceous crop genetic resources for diverse qualitative and quantitative attributes for effective variety design, product development, and marketing. The rapid development of omics techniques and bioinformatic algorithms provides convenience for functional gene mining and breeding innovations. Utilizing the abundant germplasm and improved varieties basic for the development of Cucurbitaceous Crop industrialization.

Over the past decade, germplasm and breeding innovations in cucurbitaceous Crops have exhibited rapid development. Research and application areas are mostly concentrated on the development of a new variety of resources by conventional and modern breeding methods, like BSA, Mutmap, EMS, etc., and the obtainment of new germplasms by genetic transformation and gene editing technology in cucurbitaceous crops is also an effective and efficient approach.

This Special Issue on “Germplasm and Breeding Innovations in Cucurbitaceous Crops” welcomes the submission of review and research papers or short communications on the following topics: germplasm, genome sequence information, evolutionary relationships, and functional genes associated with important agronomic traits in cucurbitaceous crops. Advances in these research fields are applicable to basic research in cucurbitaceous crops, and promote the applications of these resources and methods.

Prof. Dr. Huasen Wang
Dr. Li Miao
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Horticulturae is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • cucurbitaceous crops
  • germplasm
  • breeding
  • evolutionary relationships
  • functional gene

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 14720 KiB  
Article
Transcriptional Regulatory Networks Oscillate Seasonal Plasticity of Fruit Metabolism in Melon
by Zihui Gong, Jiejing Zhang, Xiaodong Yang, Guancong Deng, Ji Sun, Yuelin Xia, Zhongyuan Hu, Mingfang Zhang and Jinghua Yang
Horticulturae 2024, 10(9), 993; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae10090993 - 20 Sep 2024
Viewed by 751
Abstract
Environmental cues profoundly influence the developmental processes of plants that evolve to produce specific phenotypes. However, the developmental plasticity in response to seasonal changes, particularly temperature and day length, has not been fully understood in fruit development and quality. To explore the mechanism [...] Read more.
Environmental cues profoundly influence the developmental processes of plants that evolve to produce specific phenotypes. However, the developmental plasticity in response to seasonal changes, particularly temperature and day length, has not been fully understood in fruit development and quality. To explore the mechanism by which the transcriptional network adapts to external environmental changes by regulating metabolism during the development of melon fruits, this study selected the fruits grown under spring and fall conditions and focused on specific phenylpropanoid pathway metabolites, including phenolic acids, lignin, and flavonoids. Significant changes in these compounds result in noticeable differences in fruit quality such as texture, flavor, and color, which are of utmost importance to consumers. Employing co-expression analysis complemented by machine learning, we identified hub genes and pathways governing the metabolic changes, highlighting the influence of temperature and photoperiod cues in mediating the transcriptional regulatory networks. These results provide valuable insights into how fruits adapt to seasonal variability, and drive us to innovate broadly adaptable melon cultivars poised for improved climate resilience in the future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Germplasm and Breeding Innovations in Cucurbitaceous Crops)
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19 pages, 6962 KiB  
Article
Combining Ability and Hybrid Breeding in Tunisian Melon (Cucumis melo L.) for Fruit Traits
by Hela Chikh-Rouhou, Lydia Kienbaum, Amani H. A. M. Gharib, Oreto Fayos and Ana Garcés-Claver
Horticulturae 2024, 10(7), 724; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae10070724 - 9 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1025
Abstract
A half-diallel cross study of seven melon inbred lines was carried out. The seven parents and their 21 F1 hybrids were evaluated for precocity of maturity, average weight per fruit, and fruit quality (fruit size, rind thickness, and soluble solids). The Diallel [...] Read more.
A half-diallel cross study of seven melon inbred lines was carried out. The seven parents and their 21 F1 hybrids were evaluated for precocity of maturity, average weight per fruit, and fruit quality (fruit size, rind thickness, and soluble solids). The Diallel analysis was investigated for breeding values of these melon genotypes via general and specific combining ability, relationships between general and specific combining ability, and heterosis for the evaluated traits. The analysis of variance of the traits evaluated indicated highly significant differences among genotypes, suggesting the presence of adequate genetic variation for breeding. Additive genetic effects were most important with respect to fruit weight, while genetic dominance and epistasis effects mainly controlled fruit quality traits (fruit size, rind thickness, and TSS). Parent 1 (P1) and parent 3 (P3) had significant positive general combining ability effects for fruit weight. Also, P3 had positive general combining ability effects for fruit length and diameter, and cavity diameter. P3 was found to show maximum significant GCA in the desirable direction for all the traits except for TSS. Evaluation of heterosis (%) revealed that hybrid P1 × P3 can be considered as the best-performing hybrid for average fruit weight, TSS, and precocity, which also exhibited the highest positive and significant SCA effect for these traits. These results suggested that, among the melon genotypes studied, there is the potential to generate superior new varieties in hybrid production. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Germplasm and Breeding Innovations in Cucurbitaceous Crops)
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Review

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15 pages, 2342 KiB  
Review
Research Progress on the Genetic and Molecular Mechanisms of Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) Powdery Mildew Resistance
by Jian Wang, Yuyan Sun, Shengjun Zhou, Yuqiang Zhu, Luyao Gao, Xin Wang, Wenqi Dong, Jihong Tan, Huasen Wang and Peng Zhang
Horticulturae 2024, 10(11), 1166; https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae10111166 - 3 Nov 2024
Viewed by 860
Abstract
As a common fungal disease, powdery mildew (PM) is one of the main diseases that harm the growth and development of cucumbers. Understanding the types of pathogenic fungus and analysis of the genetic and molecular mechanisms of cucumber resistance to PM at the [...] Read more.
As a common fungal disease, powdery mildew (PM) is one of the main diseases that harm the growth and development of cucumbers. Understanding the types of pathogenic fungus and analysis of the genetic and molecular mechanisms of cucumber resistance to PM at the molecular level are important when breeding disease-resistant varieties. The present review summarizes the hazards, prevention, and control of PM, and it discusses resistance inheritance rules, molecular markers, quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping, gene cloning, omics, and gene editing technology, providing research insights on cucumber breeding varieties resistant to PM. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Germplasm and Breeding Innovations in Cucurbitaceous Crops)
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