Ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) is a stable and effective chemical mutagen. In this study, cucumber (Cucumis sativus L. cv. “Shannong No. 5”) seeds were treated by 1% EMS for 12 h, 24 h and 48 h to optimize EMS mutagenesis and determined median lethal dose of EMS (1% EMS and 24 h) for “Shannong No. 5”. After treated by 1% EMS for 24 h, 541 M1 plants were grown in greenhouse for phenotype investiga...

Natural enemies and pollinators require nutritional and habitat resources that are often not found in conventional agricultural fields. The addition of flowering plants within agroecosystems may provide the resources necessary to support beneficial insects at the local scale. We hypothesized that insect pollinator and natural enemy abundance would increase in cucumber (Cucumis sativus) plots co...

Chryseobacterium sp. strain GSE06 is a biocontrol endophytic bacterium against the destructive soilborne oomycete Phytophthora capsici, which causes Phytophthora blight of pepper. Here, we present its draft genome sequence, which contains genes related to biocontrol traits, such as colonization, antimicrobial activity, plant growth promotion, and abiotic or biotic stress adaptation.

BACKGROUND The cucumber, Cucumis sativus, is one of the most widely consumed fruit vegetables the world over. The history of its dispersal to the Occident from its centre of origin, the Indian subcontinent, has been incorrectly understood for some time, due to the confusion of cucumbers with vegetable melons. Iconographic and literary evidence has shown that cucumber was absent in Roman times, ...

BACKGROUND The gorgeous frescoes organized by the master Renaissance painter Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520) and illustrating the heavenly adventures of Cupid and Psyche were painted between 1515 and 1518 to decorate the Roman villa (now known as the Villa Farnesina) of the wealthy Sienese banker Agostino Chigi (1466-1520). Surrounding these paintings are festoons of fruits, vegetables and flowers p...

Mariculture of tropical sea cucumbers is promising, but the nursery rearing of juveniles is a bottleneck for farming and sea ranching. We conducted four medium-scale experiments lasting 3-6 weeks, using thousands of cultured juvenile sandfish Holothuria scabra, to optimise nursery rearing in mesh enclosures in earthen seawater ponds and to test rearing in enclosures in the sea. In one experimen...

The auricularia larva of sea cucumbers and tornaria larva of acorn worms share striking developmental and morphological similarities. They are regarded as not only an archetype of the nonchordate deuterostome larva, but also an archetype of the origin of chordates. Here we report the characterization and spatial expression patterns of the BMP-2/4 genes of a hemichordate acorn worm (Pf-bmp2/4) a...

Twenty four specimens of holothuroids recently received from the South African Environmental and Observation Network (SAEON), collected from off the south and west coasts of South Africa, are herein recorded and/or described. The specimens comprise eight nominal and one indeterminate species and represent both shallow-water and deep-sea forms, distributed from Plettenberg Bay to just north of L...

Over five hundred and forty of seacucumbers eollected on the southern coasts of Tasmania have in the course of the present study. Seven families, 12 and 14 species are represented in the One is regarded are as new, adhaerens, TaVUtll. and Paraca.udina. Three other species have not been recorded previously from Tasmania but are known from the coast of Victoria. They are Cllcurnella Jnutans incon...

Although we have made great progress in developing resistance to root – knot nematodes in cucumber, no source has been created or screened to resistance to M. incognita, the main species affecting cucumber (9, 10). Resistance to M. incognita exists in horned cucumber (Cucumis metuliferus), but efforts by many research groups (including our own) to make crosses of Cucumis species with cucumber h...