Morphological and molecular characterization of watermelon genotypes using RAPD markers

The genotypes of watermelon showed variation in morphological as well as quantitative traits. The tallest plant (358.65 cm) was produced by CL6 genotype and the shortest plant (198.55 cm) was observed in case of CL3 genotype. The maximum no. of fruit was found in CL 6(5.67) and the lowest fruit was found in CL3 (0.89). Moreover, the CL6 consistently recorded significant differences from other genotypes in all quantitative characters except in fruit weight. CL2 was also significantly different from other genotypes in all the six quantitative characters. This genotype recorded significantly high branch number, high fruit number, high fruit weight, thinner rind and low seed number as compared to other genotypes. Seven primers on six watermelon genotypes were used for their ability to produce polymorphic patterns among them only two primers (CL06 and CL07) gave reproducible and distinct polymorphic amplified products. This proportion of polymorphism is higher in all the selected genotypes of watermelon. The present experiment produced 1.71 scorable bands per primer and 0.85 polymorphic bands per primer. DNA markers have not been utilized well in the practice of plant identification, due to lack of analysis methods that can make the identification of plants with DNA marker easy, efficient and practical. The main advantages of this identification strategy include fewer primers used, and separation of all the cultivars from each other and its helps to separate any watermelon cultivars among the 6, which can definitely be of great help to the watermelon cultivation in Bangladesh.