Recent advances in genetics and breeding of pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata Duch.)

ABSTRACT

Pumpkin is a traditional crop that is widely grown for its mature and immature fleshy fruits, seeds, flowers and processed products. It occupies a foremost place among the cucurbits owing to its high yield potential, nutritional value and longer shelf life. Pumpkin displays a wide range of variations for fruit colour, shape, size, number of seeds, flesh colour, thickness, sugar and carotenoid content. Large-sized flowers and seeds, a large number of seeds per fruit and a range of variability for different traits make the crop ideal for commercial breeding. However, the knowledge of inheritance and genetic behaviour of any traits is essential for planning an appropriate breeding strategy. Despite high morphological and biochemical variability and economic significance, very little emphasis is given for its genetic improvement. Hence keeping in view the significance of this crop, information on the inheritance of important traits, breeding strategies, application of molecular markers, genomics and transcriptomics in pumpkin breeding has been discussed here.

KEYWORDS:

• Pumpkin
• genetics
• heterosis
• biotic stress
• abiotic stress
• molecular breeding

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors

Data availability

All the data are given in the manuscript.