Importance of the American resource of Cucurbitaceae conserved by CATIE Germplasm Bank and its potential for genetic improvement

Abstract

CATIE retains 2332 accessions of Cucurbitaceae (Cucurbita = 2119, Lagenaria = 147, Cucumis = 25, Citrullus = 9, Momordica = 9, Sicana = 9, Cionosicyos = 5, Cyclanthera = 3, Luffa = 4, Benincasa = 2). 93% of the germplasm comes from America and 99% are traditional crops. Different morphological characterizations have reported great variability in the accessions analyzed. In a molecular characterization performed at 218 accessions, 24 haplotypes and 9 unique haplotypes were found. These results confirm the conserved genetic diversity and its potential for genetic improvement, evaluation and research. The Cucurbita genus is the most numerous in the collection, and brings together some of the most important crops of the American continent, where important archaeological findings for this genus have been reported. The Cucurbita collection of CATIE is the second in global importance and the most important in America. 99.66% of the germplasm comes from the Americas, and a global level, with 7% of the 39,583 accessions conserved in the world. This work is a compilation of information generated during 44 years of conservation of Cucurbitaceae. Databases, research, thesis, scientific articles and other sources were reviewed, in order to analyze the global importance and potential of the Cucurbitaceae collection protected by CATIE.