Highlights•Selection for female flowers is a unique strategy in cucumber domestication.•
Domestication involved selection for fruit surface traits, including spines, warts and …

The Cucurbitaceae family provides numerous important crops including watermelons
(Citrullus lanatus), melons (Cucumis melo), cucumbers (Cucumis sativus), and pumpkins …

Cucurbit viruses cause considerable economic losses worldwide. The most common viral
diseases affecting this crop family are Potyviruses, Cucumoviruses, Criniviruses …

Germplasm collections are a crucial resource to conserve natural genetic diversity and
provide a source of novel traits essential for sustained crop improvement. Optimal collection …

Breeding is the most important and efficient method for crop improvement involving repeated
modification of the genetic makeup of a plant population over many generations. In this …

Crop plants encounter various biotic and abiotic stresses that hinder life throughout their
growth and development. These factors certainly affect the productivity and quality of the …

Key message Molecular breeding of Cucumis sativus L. is based on traditional breeding
techniques and modern biological breeding in China. There are opportunities for further …

Key message We identified a short fruit3 (sf3) mutant in cucumber. Map-based cloning
revealed that CsKTN1 gene encodes a katanin p60 subunit, which is associated with the …

One of the biggest problems in cucumber cultivation is cucurbit downy mildew (DM), caused
by the obligate biotroph Pseudoperonospora cubensis. Whereas DM in cucumber was …

Cucurbitaceae, the gourd family of flowering plants, is a very large and diverse family, the
order Cucurbitales, contains 95 genera and 950–980 species of food and ornamental …