Genes for "Reverse" Fruit Striping in Squash (Cucurbita pepo)

Longitudinal striping is a common fruit color pattern in Cucurbita pepo and is conferred by any of several alleles at the light coloration-1 locus. Normally, dark stripes appear over the fruit surface areas between the 10 main subepidermal vein tracts with the lighter background color over and adjacent to these vein tracts. Less commonly, the striping is "reversed," that is, lighter than the background color. The present work was conducted to elucidate the mode of inheritance of reverse striping. The results indicated that reverse striping is conferred by the complementary interaction of an allele for striping with a heretofore unidentified allele at the light coloration-2 locus which is hereby designated l-2(R). Fruits of plants carrying an allele for striping and that are homozygous for l-2(R) have completely reversed striping, whereas those heterozygous for l-2(R) have striping that is completely normal or that is partially normal and partially reversed.