Abstract
Reproductive phenological traits of great agronomical interest in apricot species, including flowering date, ripening date and fruit development period, were studied during 3 years in two F1 progenies derived from the crosses ‘Bergeron’ × ‘Currot’ (B × C) and ‘Goldrich’ × ‘Currot’ (G × C). Results showed great variability and segregation in each population, confirming the polygenic nature and quantitative inheritance of all the studied traits. Genetic linkage maps were constructed combining SSR and SNP markers, using 87 markers in the ‘B × C’ population and 89 markers in ‘G × C’. The genetic linkage maps in both progenies show the eight linkage groups (LGs) of apricot, covering a distance of 394.9 cM in ‘Bergeron’ and of 414.3 cM in ‘Currot’. The ‘Goldrich’ and ‘Currot’ maps were of 353.5 and 422.3 cM, respectively. The average distance obtained between markers was thus 7.59 cM in ‘Bergeron’ and 7.53 cM in ‘Currot’, whereas the ‘Goldrich’ and ‘Currot’ averages were 5.6 and 7.5 cM, respectively. According to the polygenic nature of the studied phenology traits, QTLs linked to flowering date, ripening date and the fruit development period were identified during the 3 years of the study in all LGs except for LG 8. Among the QTLs identified, major QTLs for flowering and ripening date and the fruit development period were identified in LG 4, especially important in the ‘G × C’ population.
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Acknowledgments
This study was supported by project “apricot breeding” (AGL2013-41,452-R) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and “breeding stone fruit species assisted by molecular tools” of the Seneca Foundation of the region of Murcia (19879/GERM/15). The authors thank the Fondazione Cassa Di Risparmio in Bologna (Italy) for supporting the Sequenom analysis in the Centre for Applied Biomedical Research (CRBA) of Bologna.
Data archiving statement
The progenitors used in the generation of progenies are registered in the Plant Variety Database (PLUTO; http://www.upov.int/pluto/en) belonging to the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) http://www.upov.int. The apricot cultivars and progenies in the study belong to the germplasm collection and breeding programmes of CEBAS-CSIC, which includes some breeding research material whose QTL data is available in the Genome Database for Rosaceae (GDR, http://www.rosaceae.org).
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Communicated by A. G. Abbott
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Salazar, J.A., Ruiz, D., Campoy, J.A. et al. Inheritance of reproductive phenology traits and related QTL identification in apricot. Tree Genetics & Genomes 12, 71 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-016-1027-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-016-1027-6