Methods of obtaining androecious cucurbit plants

A method for the production of androecious or of androecious tendency plant of the Cucurbitaceae family selected from the group consisting of Cucumis, Citrullus, Luffa, Momordica and Lagenaria genera, with the exclusion of the Cucumis sativus species, comprising the steps of:

• i) exposing seed of the Cucurbitaceae family to a mutagenic agent, wherein the mutagenic agent induces one or more non-natural mutations in at least one 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase 8 (ACS8) allele in the genome of the seed,
• ii) growing the plant of the Cucurbitaceae family from the seed obtained in step i), wherein the plant comprises at least one mutated 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase 8 (ACS8) allele thus conferring androecy or androecious tendency, wherein the presence of the at least one mutated ACS8 allele is determined by an absence or a reduced enzymatic activity of at least 50% of SEQ ID NO:12, SEQ ID NO:21, SEQ ID NO:24, SEQ ID NO:27, SEQ ID NO:30 or SEQ ID NO:36 compared to a plant of the same species grown from a seed that was not exposed to the mutagenic agent, and wherein the at least one mutated ACS8 allele encodes an ACS8 polypeptide having at least 95% sequence identity with SEQ ID NO:12, SEQ ID NO:21, SEQ ID NO:24, SEQ ID NO:27, SEQ ID NO:30 or SEQ ID NO:36.