Abstract
SummaryGenetic diversity in watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) was estimated among 213 seedlings from 22 accessions collected in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The accessions consisted of two types of watermelon landraces: sweet watermelon (C. lanatus var. lanatus) and cow-melon (C. lanatus var. citroides), also known as citron melon. In addition, three commercial varieties of C. lanatus var. lanatus from the USA were included for comparison. Ten simple sequence repeat (SSR; microsatellite) loci detected a total of 153 alleles. The polymorphic information content (PIC) ranged from 0.833 – 0.963, suggesting sufficient discriminatory power. Both a cluster analysis and a principal co-ordinate analysis produced two major clusters, one with the 13 cow-melon accessions and the other with the 12 sweet watermelon accessions. Within the sweet watermelon cluster, the three US cultivars grouped together with the Botswana accessions. Some of the other accessions also grouped according to their country of origin, but others did not. Within-accession diversity parameters showed that those sweet watermelon accessions found in traditional agrosystems were just as genetically variable as the cow-melon accessions.
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