ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 7 -- United States Patent no. 12,593,768, issued on April 7, was assigned to NUNHEMS B.V. (Nunhem, Netherlands).
"Watermelon gene conferring a high number of male flowers" was invented by Daniel Puglisi (Sant Agata Bolognese, Italy), Alberto Sirizzotti (Sant Agata Bolognese, Italy), Courtney Hu (Sacramento, Calif.), Mona Mazaheri (Davis, Calif.) and Giulia Pagliarani (Sant Agata Bolognese, Italy).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention is directed to a gene which, when mutated, results in presence of many male flowers and absence of female flowers in watermelon. Plants comprising mutant alleles of this gene are useful as pollenizers in the production of trip...