Enhancing anthocyanin production by altering competition for substrate between flavonol synthase and dihydroflavonol 4reductase

Cucurbita pepo (pumpkin, squash, gourd) is an economically important species that is susceptible to the cucurbit powdery mildew fungus, Podosphaera xanthii(syn. Sphaerotheca fuliginea). `True Frenchʹ, an open-pollinated cultivar of the Zucchini Group of C. pepo, was crossed with an unnamed powdery-mildew resistant straightneck-type accession, the resistance of which was apparently derived from an interspecific cross with a resistant wild species of Cucurbita, and resistant plants were selected in the F2 generation. This was followed by six cycles of backcross-pedigree selection for resistance, and resulted in the development of an accession true-breeding for resistance to powdery mildew and nearly isogenic to `True Frenchʹ. The resistant and susceptible near-isogenics were crossed and seeds of the filial and backcross generations were produced. Plants of the parental accessions and their progenies were grown together in a controlledenvironment chamber, exposed to the pathogenic fungus, and scored as resistant, partially resistant, or susceptible 27–33 days after sowing. The results indicated that resistance is conferred by a single incompletely dominant gene, designated Pm-0.