Unfavorable environmental stresses are major limiting factors that affect plant productivity. Plants perceive and respond adaptively to an abiotic stress condition, and the adaptive process is controlled mainly by phytohormone, consequently, changing in gene expression pattern. Transcriptional regulator ABF3 (Abscisic acid response element Binding Factor 3) mediating the ABA-responsive gene expression plays important roles in drought and temperature tolerance. Here, we report an event of drought tolerant GM gourd in which abf3 was inserted in the genome. For drought stress experiment, T0 plants were self-pollinated and back-crossed to select cultivars for drought stress experiment. The drought tolerant GM gourds were selected for last 3 years and have been crossed to get the several BC and T generation consecutively. In this year, BC3T1, F1 (Bak x GM gourd), BC1F1 and control plants were subjected to drought stress, that is no watering for 12 days and rehydration afterwards. The GM gourds showed high tolerance to drought while the non-transformed plants were totally dried. When the plants were subjected to rehydration, the GM bottle gourds were completely revived and recovered from the drought stress. Tolerance levels to drought of BC3T1, F1 (Bak x GM gourd) and BC1F1 were 92.5%, 50.0% and 65.0%, respectively.

CGMMV (cucumber green mottle mosaic virus) infects many cucurbitaceae species causing mosaic symptoms, yellowish leaf, and fruit deterioration. Several isolates of CGMMV from Korea, Israel, Japan, Greece and Spain have been characterized. In fact, CGMMV outbreaks have caused huge losses in the total yields of cucurbitaceous crops in Korea. Unfortunately, no genetic source is available for the resistance against CGMMV infection, and therefore, the breeding management offers no access to a solution yet. Thus, an alternative was to transform the viral gene such as CGMMV-CP into crops to induce tolerance against CGMMV. Here, we present the successful transformation of watermelon rootstock (gongdae) by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation with the CGMMV-CP gene. We obtained 29 independent T0 watermelon rootstock plants from the transformation of 7,887 explants. T0 plants were self-crossed and T1 plants were screened by the virus infection. Those gongdaes tolerant to virus were selected continuously, and BC2T1 and T3 generation were obtained. We have also obtained watermelons of BCF generation by crossing GM gongdae to watermelon line and those BCF watermelones were strongly tolerant to CGMMV.