Multicellular living organisms and unmodified parts thereof and – Plant – seedling – plant seed – or plant part – per se – Higher plant – seedling – plant seed – or plant part
Reexamination Certificate
2002-02-14
2004-07-20
Kubelik, Anne R. (Department: 1638)
Multicellular living organisms and unmodified parts thereof and
Plant, seedling, plant seed, or plant part, per se
Higher plant, seedling, plant seed, or plant part
C800S260000, C435S410000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06765130
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a new and distinctive cucumber inbred line, designated 8D-5079. There are numerous steps in the development of any novel, desirable plant germplasm. Plant breeding begins with the analysis and definition of problems and weaknesses of the current germplasm, the establishment of program goals, and the definition of specific breeding objectives. The next step is selection of germplasm that possess the traits to meet the program goals. The goal is to combine in a single variety or hybrid an improved combination of desirable traits from the parental germplasm. These important traits may include higher yield, field performance, fruit and agronomic quality such as fruit shape and length, small cavity size, flesh texture, resistance to diseases and insects, and tolerance to drought and heat.
Practically speaking, all cultivated forms of cucumber belong to the highly polymorphic species
Cucumis sativus
L. that is grown for its edible fruit. As a crop, cucumbers are grown commercially wherever environmental conditions permit the production of an economically viable yield. They can be hand or mechanically harvested. Cucumbers that are grown for fresh market, also called slicers, are generally hand harvested. Those that are to be processed are called pickles and may be hand or mechanically harvested. They are produced on trailing or climbing vines. On healthy plants there is a canopy of large, regular, three lobed leaves, in an alternate arrangement. Pickling cucumbers grown in the United States have usually blunt and angular fruits. They are white-spined and most possess dark green or medium dark green exterior color. Most slicers have slightly rounded ends and taper slightly from the stem to blossom end, although cylindrical-shaped fruits with blocky or even rounded ends are also available. Many changes that occurred with the domestication of the cucumber relate to fruit morphology, with a specialization in fruit shape and size. Slicing cucumbers are frequently sold in lengths from 6 to 10 in. and diameter varies from 1
1/2
to nearly 3 in. In the United States, the principal slicer cucumber growing regions are Georgia, Florida, Michigan, California and North Carolina with nearly 42,000 acres out of a US total acreage of 57,500 acres. The main states that produce processing cucumbers are Michigan, North Carolina and Texas. Fresh cucumbers are available in the United States mainly from spring to fall. Cucumbers are consumed in many forms, generally processed for pickling types and as fresh market product for slicers. Although slicing cultivars may be processed, they generally are not acceptable substitutes for the pickling cucumbers.
Cucumis sativus
is a member of the family Cucurbitaceae. The Cucurbitaceae is a family of about 90 genera and 700 to 760 species, mostly of the tropics. The family includes melons, pumpkins, squashes, gourds, watermelon, loofah and many weeds. The genus Cucumis, to which the cucumber and several melons belong, includes about 70 species. The cucumber is believed to be native to India or Southern Asia and has been apparently there for 3000 years.
Cucumber is distinct from other Cucumis species in that it has seven pairs of chromosomes (2n=2x=14) whereas most others have twelve pairs or multiple of twelve. Pollination techniques for controlled crosses in cucumbers are easy to conduct. If bees and natural pollen vectors can be excluded, the breeder need not to be concerned about preventing selfing or other pollen contamination because of the diclinous nature of cucumbers and the stickiness or adherence of pollen to its source flower. There is no wind dissemination of pollen. Pistillate flowers are receptive in the morning or up to midday on the day they open. Cucumbers have a broad range of floral morphologies, from staminate, pistillate to hermaphodite flowers, yielding several types of sex expression.
Choice of breeding or selection methods depends on the mode of plant reproduction, the heritability of the trait(s) being improved, and the type of cultivar used commercially (e.g., F
1
hybrid cultivar, pureline cultivar, etc.). For highly heritable traits, a choice of superior individual plants evaluated at a single location will be effective, whereas for traits with low heritability, selection should be based on mean values obtained from replicated evaluations of families of related plants. Popular selection methods commonly include pedigree selection, modified pedigree selection, mass selection, and recurrent selection.
The complexity of inheritance influences choice of the breeding method. Backcross breeding is used to transfer one or a few favorable genes for a highly heritable trait into a desirable cultivar. This approach has been used extensively for breeding disease-resistant cultivars. Various recurrent selection techniques are used to improve quantitatively inherited traits controlled by numerous genes. The use of recurrent selection in self-pollinating crops depends on the ease of pollination, the frequency of successful hybrids from each pollination, and the number of hybrid offspring from each successful cross.
Each breeding program should include a periodic, objective evaluation of the efficiency of the breeding procedure. Evaluation criteria vary depending on the goal and objectives, but should include gain from selection per year based on comparisons to an appropriate standard, overall value of the advanced breeding lines, and number of successful cultivars produced per unit of input (e.g., per year, per dollar expended, etc.).
Promising advanced breeding lines are thoroughly tested and compared to appropriate standards in environments representative of the commercial target area(s) for three years at least. The best lines are candidates for new commercial cultivars; those still deficient in a few traits are used as parents to produce new populations for further selection.
These processes, which lead to the final step of marketing and distribution, usually take from eight to 12 years from the time the first cross is made. Therefore, development of new cultivars is a time-consuming process that requires precise forward planning, efficient use of resources, and a minimum of changes in direction.
A most difficult task is the identification of individuals that are genetically superior, because for most traits the true genotypic value is masked by other confounding plant traits or environmental factors. One method of identifying a superior plant is to observe its performance relative to other experimental plants and to a widely grown standard cultivar. If a single observation is inconclusive, replicated observations provide a better estimate of its genetic worth.
The goal of plant breeding is to develop new, unique and superior cucumber inbred lines and hybrids. The breeder initially selects and crosses two or more parental lines, followed by repeated selfing or sib crossing and selection, producing many new genetic combinations. The breeder can theoretically generate billions of different genetic combinations via crossing, selfing and mutations. The breeder has no direct control at the cellular level. Therefore, two breeders will never develop the same line, or even very similar lines, having the same cucumber traits.
Each year, the plant breeder selects the germplasm to advance to the next generation. This germplasm is grown under unique and different geographical, climatic and soil conditions, and further selections are then made, during and at the end of the growing season. The inbred lines that are developed are unpredictable. This unpredictability is because the breeder's selection occurs in unique environments, with no control at the DNA level (using conventional breeding procedures), and with millions of different possible genetic combinations being generated. A breeder of ordinary skill in the art cannot predict the final resulting lines he develops, except possibly in a very gross and general fashion. The same breeder cannot produce the same line twice by us
Harris Moran Seed Company
Jondle & Associates P.C.
Kubelik Anne R.
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