Prevalence and variation of viviparous germination with respect to fruit maturation in the bottle gourd (Molina) Standley (Cucurbitaceae).

Researches documenting comprehensively the prevalence of seed vivipary in relation to phenology, as well as its impact on production are scant. This article reports the results of investigations carried out during four cropping seasons to quantitatively document seed vivipary in the oleaginous bottle gourd (). Field experiments were conducted during the first and second cropping season of 2014 and 2015 at the experimental station of Nangui Abrogoua University (Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire). The assessment of the prevalence of seed vivipary was carried out using 185 accessions collected in different ecological zones of Côte d'Ivoire. To examine the influence of fruit maturation time on seed vivipary, four accessions (two viviparous and two non-viviparous) were cropped and harvested at 30 and 50 days after fertilization (DAF), complete whiteness of plants (CPW) and after 60 days of storage of fruits harvested on plants completely withered (CPWS). Finally, a comparative analysis of seed yield and its main components was conducted using four accessions including two highly viviparous and two non-viviparous. The results on seed vivipary prevalence showed that the oleaginous form of is highly susceptible and allowed the classification of the 185 accessions analyzed into three groups: non-viviparous (2.16%), viviparous (89.19%) and highly viviparous accessions (8.65%). No precocious seed germination was observed in non-viviparous accessions during fruit maturation stage. The fruits of highly viviparous accessions harvested at 30 DAF showed no precocious seed germination while 3.35-17.89% of fruits bearing viviparous seed were observed at 50 DAF. Plants from highly viviparous fruits showed significantly low yields compared those from non-viviparous fruits. These results suggested that an efficient control of seed vivipary allowing a quantitative and qualitative improvement of yield in the oilseed bottle gourd can be ensured by the selection of vivipary-tolerant genotypes and appropriate planning of the harvest time.