A New Method for Producing Seedless Watermelon Seedlings

Abstract

A new method for producing seedless watermelon seedlings was studied in this paper. Grafting branches breeding (GBB) and grafting seedling breeding (GSB) of seedless watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum and Nakai) cultivar Mi Tong was grafted onto No.1 of E-zhen, commercial hybrids. Seed breeding (SB) self-plants were used as control. The effect of different methods on watermelon fruit yield and quality was tested. The results showed that fruit yield was positively influenced by GBB when compared with the control. Detrimental effects were not determinated on fruit qualities such as fruit index, fruit weight and sugars on grafted plants. Moreover, GBB reduced the cost of producing seedless watermelon seedlings. Therefore, the grafting technique of using branches for scion was feasible, simple and efficient in the progress of seedless watermelon development.