Apomictic Crabapples and Their Potential for Research and Fruit Production

Abstract

The desire to propagate plants with useful and predictable characteristics vegetatively has been a major concern since the beginning of agriculture. Clonal propagation of apple varieties by grafting onto rootstocks dates back to ancient times (72). A range of techniques for vegetative propagation have been developed over the years, including advances in layering, rooting cuttings, grafting and budding, and the relatively recent approach of micropropagation (31). Vegetative propagation is costly and inefficient compared to seed propagation. For crops with short generation time, repetitive inbreeding or hybrid crosses of inbred lines allows the propagation of nearly genetically uniform populations by sexually produced seed (1). However, generation time in perennial tree crops, including Malus spp., is too long to make this approach practical. As a result, sexually produced seedling populations are highly variable. For this reason, the limited numbers of apomictic species among perennials constitute extremely valuable exceptions, allowing efficient propagation of genetically uniform populations from seed.

Evaluation of Self-fruitfulness with Hand-pollination in Crabapples, <i>Malus</i> spp.

“…Saito et al (1993) reported that M. scheideckeri, maintained at the Hirosaki University Fujisaki farm and is identical to M. hupehensis based on morphological characteristics and isozyme analysis, is one of the apomictic Malus species suggesting that M. scheideckeri used in this study may also be apomictic M. hupehensis. Since the common name of M. hupehensis is Tea crabapple (Benson et al, 2001;Olien, 1987), 'Tea Crab 81105' may have characteristics of apomixis. 'Nepal Apple Collections No.…”

“…This suggests that fruits obtained by self-pollination in 'Silver Moon Crab' included apomictic seeds. M. corronaria, M. hupehensis, M. sargentii, M. sieboldii, M. sikkimensis, and M. toringoides are known as an apomictic Malus species (Dermen, 1936;Janick et al, 1996;Olien, 1987;Sax, 1959). M. sikkimensis and M. toringoides respectively set 70% and 45% of self-pollinated fruits in a single-year (Table 1) and may include apomictic fruit set.…”

Determination of Fire Blight Susceptibility on Wild Rosaceae Plants in Korea by Artificial Inoculation

“…더불어 생물학적 방제제 개발 을 위한 다양한 연구들이 수행되고 있다 (Kim 등, 2022;Park 등, 2022). (Olien, 1987), 이러한 특징으로 인해 대목으로 사용된다고 알려져 있다 (Schmidt, 1988). 하지만, 꽃사과나무, 서부해당화, 아그배나무 모두 화상 (Leather, 1996).…”