Title page for ETD Evaluation of the cucumber germplasm collection for fruit yield and quality by Nischit Shetty PhD Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in Horticultural Science Approved Todd C. Wehner, Chair Bruce S. Weir Randolph G. Gardner Thomas E. Carter Jr. Evaluation of the cucumber germplasm collection for fruit yield and quality. Thus, it is necessary to improve yield in cucumber by finding new sources of yield genes in the germplasm collection.
Ethylene is a plant growth regulator known to alter sex expression in cucumber.
Preliminary studies were conducted on a set of pickling and slicing cucumber cultigens differing in sex expression. Cultigens were subjected to contrasting rates of ethephon and two harvest stages under field conditions in North Carolina. Ethephon treatments had a significant effect on yield and fruit quality rating. In the above experiment, we also measured the effects of ethephon on several vegetative and floral traits. To study the effects of ethylene on the sex expression further, ethephon was applied to inbred lines of cucumber and interactions with genes for sex expression were evaluated.