Sex expression in monoecious cucumbers micropropagated in vitro

Abstract

The effects of plant growth regulators (PRGs) on the induction of flowering and sex expression in micropropagated cucumbers are presented. The highest number of male flowers (6.0 ± 0.7 per plant) was produced by cv. Kmicic F1 on the Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 4.0 µM kinetin. The highest number of female flowers (3.1 ± 0.3) was also observed in cv. Kmicic F1 on either control (PRG-free) medium or medium supplemented with 6.4 µM indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). The MS medium supplemented with 4.4 µM benzyladenine inhibited flower formation. The highest percentage of flowering plantlets (67.5 ± 7.5) was observed on the control MS medium after 16 weeks of culture. Female-to-male flower ratio was influenced by the culture media and changed during cultivation. The highest pollen viability (60 -70 %) was observed in anthers of plants cultured on the control medium and the medium with IAA.

Changes in polyamine pattern mediates sex differentiation and unisexual flower development in monoecious cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.)

“…Different types of sex expression (monoecy, dioecy, hermaphrodity, androecy or gynoecy) occur in the species; however, in agricultural production, the most valuable types include gynoecious and monoecious cultivars. Sexual differentiation in cucumber is under the control of genetic (Malepszy and Niemirowicz‐Szczytt 1991, Tanurdzic and Banks 2004) and environmental factors (Yamasaki et al 2003, Hidayatullah et al 2009, Kiełkowska 2013, Kiełkowska et al 2017). In cucumbers, PAs have mainly been studied to assess responses to environmental stresses like chilling (Shen et al 2000) and salt stress (Duan et al 2008).…”

The Co-Involvement of Light and Air Temperature in Regulation of Sex Expression in Monoecious Cucumber (<i>Cucumis sativus</i> L.)

“…Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.), a representative of the Cucurbitaceae family, is one of the most important horticultural crops in the world. It can show every type of sex expression including androecious (male flowers only), andromonoecious (staminate and bisexual flowers on the same plant), gynoecious (female flowers only), hermaphroditic (perfect flowers only), monoecious (both male and female flowers on the same plant) and trimonoecious (male, female and bisexual flowers on the same plant) [4] and is thus considered as a model crop for plant sex expression research.…”