Abstract :
Landraces and older varieties face with extinction in modern agriculture. Therefore, the preservation of diversity becomes vital for future breeding efforts because landraces and older varieties might contain genes that current varieties do not. The present study aimed to determine genetic relationships among various Sihke melon landraces for phenotypic traits. The main materials of the study were 15 Sihke melon genotypes collected from various parts at Van province of Turkey. Moreover, 2 foreign standard melon genotypes (Sembol F1 and Sempati F1) and 13 local melon genotypes that previously have not been characterized were included into the phenotypic characterization. Total 63 measurements or observations were used to define the genetic similarity among the studied melon genotypes by dendrograms or two- and three-dimensional scaling obtained from Euclidian distance matrix. With this study, the phenotypic traits of Sihke melon landrace of Van and some other local and foreign melon genotypes were determined. Moreover, the genetic relatedness among Sihke melon populations and other local and foreign genotypes were examined. Based on the molecular Euclidean distance matrix, Sihke melon landraces were different from the others and tended to be grouped together. Among the studied genotypes, the most distinct genotype was Genotype 30 called Semame. The remaining genotypes were divided into three main groups.
