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CucCAP scientists identify markers for powdery mildew resistance in watermelon
Powdery mildew outbreaks, caused by Podosphaera xanthii, cause reduced yields and fruit quality in watermelon. CucCAP scientists at Clemson University and the USDA Vegetable Laboratory Charleston SC employed a bulked segregant analysis approach using data from 1147 accessions from the USDA Citrullus germplasm collection to perform an extreme-phenotype genome-wide association study (XP-GWAS) of tolerance to P. xanthii race 2W. Kompetitive Allele-Specific PCR (KASP) markers were designed for significant SNPs associated with reduced disease. The best marker in each region explained 21-31% of the variation in powdery mildew tolerance.
For further reading:
Branham et al., 2025. Extreme-phenotype genome-wide association study (XP-GWAS) of powdery mildew race 2 W tolerance in the USDA Citrullus germplasm collection. Scientific Reports. DOI10.1038/s41598-025-89445-8
