Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2018) 7(12): 890-895 890 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2018.712.111 Effect of Intergeneric Pollen on Induction of Parthenocarpy in Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus Thunb.) V. Sravani*, P. Ashok, K. Sasikala and B. Ramesh Babu Department of vegetable science, College of Horticulture, Dr. YSR Horticultural University, Venkataramannagudem, Andhrapradesh-534101, India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus Thunb.) also known as Tarbuj (Hindi), Palmpanna (Tamil), Kalingarakaya (Telugu). It is a trailing vine, monoecious and belongs to Cucurbitaceae family. It is originated from Southern Africa. Excessive seed number in watermelon fruit is fast becoming unacceptable in international markets. The seedless watermelon cultivars are in high demand by consumers not only because of seedlessness but also because they are sweeter than the fruits from seeded cultivars. Terada and Masuda (1938) showed that seedless watermelon could be produced by artificially induced parthenocarpy. In the distant past, seedless watermelons are produced by a triploid technique by which diploid pollen (male parent) is used to pollinate pistillate flowers of tetraploid watermelon (Kihara, 1951). Sugiyama and Morishita (2000) developed a method for producing seedless watermelon in diploid plants using soft-X-irradiated pollen of intergeneric pollen. The reason behind this approach was to prevent the penetration of normal pollen by pollinating with intergeneric pollen before anthesis of pistillate watermelon flowers. Hence, the present experiment was undertaken to study the induction of parthenocarpy through intergeneric pollen in watermelon. International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 7 Number 12 (2018) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com A field experiment was carried out during Rabi 2016 at College of Horticulture, Dr. Y.S.R. Horticultural University, Venkataramannagudem (A.P) to study the effect of intergeneric pollen on induction of parthenocarpy in watermelon. Among the intergeneric pollen studied, bottle gourd pollen was successfully induced parthenocarpy followed by bitter gourd pollen. However, minimum number of empty seeds (37.20) was recorded with ash gourd pollen. The lowest seed weight per fruit (1.60 g) was observed with bottle gourd pollen whereas maximum seed weight was recorded with control (17.99 g). The maximum fruit set percentage (49.26 %), number of fruits per plant (1.56), average fruit weight (1.74 kg), yield per plant (4.75 kg) were observed when female flowers of watermelon were pollinated with bottle gourd pollen. Keywords Intergeneric pollen, Parthenocarpy, Watermelon, Bottle gourd pollen Accepted: 10 November 2018 Available Online: 10 December 2018 Article Info