Nutrition-sensitive breeding of Cucurbita plants

NutSens_PumpBreed

Methodology

The accessions from the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops’ breeding collection of pumpkins are used as plant material. The collection was established by the late Professor János Berényi almost a half century ago; today it consists of over 400 accessions of species Cucurbita moschata, maxima, and pepo, and over 50 accessions of species Lagenaria siceraria. The phenotypically divergent pumpkins are chosen from the collection which has been partially pre-evaluated in previously performed multiple-year field studies, in terms of both fruit nutritional quality and agronomic yield. To investigate possible inheritance patterns and heterosis in terms of nutritional quality, F1 offspring populations originating from the diallel crossing of the chosen C. moschata parental genotypes are included in the experiments. The crossings have also been previously performed.

The material is grown in the replicated, two-year field trial set in completely randomized blocks, at the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops, Department of Vegetable and Alternative Crops, experimental site Bački Petrovac. The accessions of Cucurbita moschata, maxima, and pepo are grown under different combinations of mineral nutrients and water availability.

The notes on agronomic yield parameters are taken from the field and the basic components of fruit nutritional quality (total carotenoids and sugars, soluble solids, flesh juice pH) are determined at the Department’s laboratory. Since carotenoids and sugars represent the most important features of pumpkin fruit’s nutritional quality, they are analyzed in details. Their identification and quantification is done by using high-performance liquid chromatography.

Additional analyses are carried out to investigate if the proposed abiotic stress markers (polyamines, reduced glutathione, lipid peroxidation, proline, total phenolics, total flavonoids, and antioxidant enzymes) may work as a reliable tool for assessing tolerance in young plants. The most suitable “green” technique (supercritical, natural deep eutectic solvents, and modified state extraction with polar extract) for the extraction of Cucurbita carotenoids is being optimized at the Institute of Food Technology in Novi Sad.

Project