ABSTRACT

Flowering in cucurbits is a major enigma since the eighteenth century, and it encompasses a large variation from sex expression to oral biology. Cucurbits are unique among other vegetable crops for sex expression and its regulation, hence amenable for manipulation, not only for economic production of hybrid seeds but also for development of new fruit types and maintenance of gynoecious lines in cucumber, muskmelon, and bitter gourd. During the last ve decades, numerous efforts have been made to understand the sex mechanism of cucurbits at endogenous and exogenous levels by various physiological and molecular experiments. Flowering in cucurbits normally starts from 40 to 45 days after sowing of seeds, although it depends on soil and weather conditions for availability of mineral nutrition and photoperiodic regulations. Cucurbitaceous vegetable crops differ in their owering time, and details on its major crops are given in Table 10.1.