Analysis of loci of regulating rind color and bloom formation of watermelon (C. lanatus) using QTL seq

This study was conducted to develop a molecular marker associated with rind color and bloom formation control genetic patterns and loci through QTL-seq analysis of the F2 population between FD061129 with light green rind color and bloom trait and SIT55616RN with dark green rind color and bloomless trait. Totally, 219 F2 populations conducted, and it is bulked with F2 samples which has extreme phnotype of each traits. Three QTL regions discovered through QTL-seq in this study provide useful information for future cloning of watermelon rind color and bloom formation gene and development of gene-based markers.