• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
• /
• v.39 no.4
• /
• pp.486-494
• /
• 2021

Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai) is sensitive to low temperature and shows retarded growth under 10℃. Although early transplanting guarantees higher returns, it requires cost and labor to maintain the appropriate temperature for plant growth. Therefore, cultivars tolerant to chilling stress is necessary to reduce the cost and labor requirements. The purpose of this study is to analyze data on plant growth and fruit enlargement under continuous chilling night temperature to develop new cultivars tolerant to chilling temperature. Two cultivars expected to have chilling tolerance and another cultivar sensitive to chilling temperature were grown in greenhouses with chilling and optimal night temperature conditions. In the early growth stage after transplanting, the cultivars expected to have chilling tolerance showed better vine length, fresh weight and dry weight. However, one of the tolerant cultivars showed significantly lower vine length, leaf length and width, and petiole length than the sensitive cultivar during pollination period and later growth stage, showing genotype specific responses. The fruit length, width, and weight were also significantly lower in the tolerant cultivar. The fruit set ratio was significantly higher in the chilling sensitive cultivar than the two tolerant cultivars. These results suggest that the present chilling tolerant cultivars in watermelon were selected based on their performance in the early growth stage, and further studies on chilling tolerance in different growth and development stages are required to develop cultivars adapted to various forcing cultivation systems.