WATERMELON GENETIC RESOURCES IN TURKEY AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS

Turkey is the second largest watermelon producing country after China. Although Turkey is not the origin of watermelon, it has valuable watermelon genetic resources which mainly consist of local genotypes. University of Cukurova has one of the largest collections of the country and has been studying the genetic collections since early 1990s. Today University of Cukurova has a collection of approximately 250 genetic materials. In this study, 15 provinces in 5 different regions (Southeastern Anatolia, Aegean, Marmara-Thrace, Middle Anatolia and Mediterranean regions) of Turkey were visited in summer and fall season of 2004. 134 watermelon genotypes were collected. Fruit (size, shape, ground color of skin, intensity of color, presence of stripes, flesh color) and seed (size, ground color of testa, secondary color of testa, patches at hilum, and patches at margin) of collected watermelon genotypes were characterized.