Research

Current Projects

Scion- rootstock incompatibility

Today, most of the watermelon plants in Israel are grafted on a squash rootstock. Beside the advantages of this practice, some problems need an answer. The early growth of watermelon under plastic cover leads to physiological incompatibility, which in turn leads to pathogen establishment at the grafting area. In this project we try to understand what are the physiological and environmental factors that lead to this failure. Through hydraulic measurements, we focus on the role of root pressure and relative humidity in the development of this phenomena.   

Using traditional watermelon accession for drought tolerance improvement 

Several decades ago, watermelon plants were grown in the field without artificial irrigation. Many years of breeding for fruit quality in irrigated fields, lead to the loss of valuable traits that can contribute to the watermelon tolerance to abiotic stress, specifically insufficient water supply. In this project we wish to identify physiological traits that can contribute to plant tolerance and use them for watermelon tolerance breeding. 

Identifying variability in the temperature response of melon and watermelon plants

The ongoing climate change includes a rapid increase in the day and night temperature. Scanning our large variety of melon and watermelon plants under controlled environmental conditions  we look for differences in the temperature response. Using physiological and genetic tools, we wish to identify and characterize the traits that contribute to high temperature tolerance.