Screening of bottle gourds (Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standley) genotypes with rootstock potential for watermelon production for resistance against Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid & White, 1919) Chitwood and Meloidogyne javanica (Treub, 1885) Chitwood

WOS: 000300345400014Screening of bottle gourds (Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standley) genotypes with rootstock potential for watermelon production for resistance against Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid & White, 1919) Chitwood and Meloidogyne javanica (Treub, 1885) Chitwood Bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standley) has been used as rootstock for watermelon since 1920s. Present study was carried out in Plant Protection Research Institute of Adana in 2007-2008. In this study, resistance of 57 bottle gourds landraces collected from Mediterranean region of Turkey against Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid & White, 1919) Chitwood and Meloidogyne javanica (Treub, 1885) Chitwood was investigated. It was found that all bottle gourds genotypes were susceptible to root-knot nematodes. Watermelon plants grafted onto bottle gourd rootstocks showed better plant growth performance and produced higher yield than ungrafted watermelon plants in field contaminated with root-knot nematodes. It was concluded that bottle gourds rootstocks were not directly resistant to nematodes but they can tolerate nematodes with their rapid growing ability at low soil temperature when nematodes are problem in the soil