Jubilee (1963)


 IMPORTANT
 BENCHMARK DATES
 SINCE 1952
 1952-61. This period was one of
evaluation of materials on hand from
previous breeders and searching for
accessions that might have value for
future breeding purposes. During this
period 10 accessions from the U.S.
Regional Plant Introduction Sta-
tion at Experiment, GA and several
lines from the Dominican Republic
with purported resistance to downy
mildew were found to be susceptible
to this disease. Also during this pe-
riod, nine segregating progenies re-
lated to 'Garrisonian' were obtained
from C. F. Andrus of the South-
eastern Vegetable Breeding Labora-
tory at Charleston, S.C. The cultivar
'Jubilee' was developed from these
lines after four generations of selec-
tion on soils heavily infested with
the Fusarium wilt fungus.
 1961. The development in 1960-
61 of a reliable greenhouse testing
procedure, using soil inoculum for
infestation and seedling wilt as a
criterion of Fusarium wilt resist-
ance, led to a major change in the
watermelon breeding program here.
Using this procedure, we were able
to identify a high-level resistance in
the cultivar 'Summit,' and later also
in Texas W5, 'Calhoun Gray,'
'Calhoun Sweet,' 'Verona,' and
'Whitehope.' First crosses were made
in 1961 to combine this high-level
resistance to Fusarium wilt with
anthracnose resistance (race 1) and
other characters desirable in a


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