Characterization of oranged flesh pure lines and determination of beta carotene contents in altınbaş group melons

The objectives of this presented study were; the characterization of 30 oranged flesh melon pure lines and 1 control (negative control) Kirkagac melon belonging to Cucumis melo var. inodorus which is the most grown and fruit external appearances are the most preferred melon in Turkey?s open field according to modified UPOV descriptors for 63 characters and determination of ß-carotene content of the pure lines. In this study, oranged flesh dihaploid melon pure lines obtained from 00655-STZ-2010/2 SANTEZ Project, supported by Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology and carried out between Çukurova University and Antalya Tarım Inc., were used. Some quantitative characters as plants hypocotyl length, cotyledon length, cotyledon width, number of nodes on main stem, length of inter nodes, leaf blade length, leaf blade width, petiole length and on matured fruits; fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit lenght, diameter of seed cavity, lenght of seed cavity, thickness of flesh, total soluble solids and ß-carotene content were also measured on the plants. According to research results, 30 pure lines and 1 control showed different level of variation from each other. The highest ß-carotene content was obtained from 10-45-3, 10-5-5, 9-61 and 9-13 lines.