Growth and development regulation of intracavity seeds in muskmelon

ObjectiveThe study were carried out to investigate growth and developmental regulation of intracavity seeds in muskmelon,and provide reference for improving seed production yield and quality.MethodThe experiments used inbred line 05-6 whose seeds germinated in fruit as material. Seeds growth and development in fruit after pollination, occurrence time and change trend of intracavity seeds germination were analyzed. Differences of seeds plumpness,germi-nated seed number,germination rate, survival seedlings rate,robustness level of seedlings in different days after pollina-tion were compared.ResultThe maturity of intracavity seeds was earlier than muskmelon fruits. On day 26 after pollina-tion,seeds were fully matured. In terms of the ungerminated seeds, compared with seeds on day 35 after pollination(when the fruit were completely mature),there were no significant(P>0.05)differences in seeds plumpness,number, germination ability,survival seedlings ability,robustness level of seedling. By contrary,the number of germinated seeds was signifi-cantly fewer than that in fruit on 35 d after pollination(P<0.05).ConclusionPicking up fruit and collecting seeds in ad-vance before fruits is matured fully is effective strategy for reducing seeds germination rate in fruit,and the most suitable picking time was day 26 after pollination for muskmelon 05-6.