The Tropical Fruit Forum
Citrus => Cold Hardy Citrus => Topic started by: Citradia on October 31, 2018, 08:29:54 PM
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I should know the answer by now, but I know several of you can elaborate ad nauseum and enlighten me: When trying to create a citrus hybrid, does it matter which of the parent trees serves as the mother or father plant? For example, I’ve learned Ichang papeda doesn’t come true from seed, so if I want a hybrid of ichangensis with Seville sour orange, I would want the ichangensis to be the mother plant, no? If the sour orange was the mother pollinated by ichangensis, there would be less chance of getting a hybrid offspring since the orange is polyembryonic, right? So when the citranges were created via hybridization, which was the mother plant, the trifoliata or the orange? Did it matter since oranges and trifoliata both tend to come true from seed with low chance of producing a hybrid? Could I pollinate both parents with each other’s pollen and then watch the seedlings of both sets of fruit to look for hybrids?
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When citrange was first being developed, they pollinated orange with trifoliate pollen and then grew 1000 seedlings. Only 4 of those seedlings displayed trifoliate leaves.
It's not implausibe that a few of the other seedlings might have been hybrids, but for practical purposes they couldn't grow out all 1000 seedlings to wait to see.
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I should know the answer by now, but I know several of you can elaborate ad nauseum and enlighten me: When trying to create a citrus hybrid, does it matter which of the parent trees serves as the mother or father plant?
Yes it does matter.
So when the citranges were created via hybridization, which was the mother plant, the trifoliata or the orange?
Orange was the mother plant, just simple click on
https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/carrizo.html
When you see : X x Y (for example:Carrizo citrange Citrus sinensis 'Washington' sweet orange X Poncirus trifoliata), X is mother.
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There is also a phenomenon that the hybrid often inherits more traits from its mother. Therefore, it does matter which way the cross is made but sometimes one way can be much more difficult than the other or impossible.
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In the case of citranges, they really can be and are produced in both directions of pollination.
Colman, Morton, Rustic, Savage and Willitis are produced in 1897 by W.Swingle from a single fruit of Poncirus pollinated by sweet orange, while Rusk is produced from Orange x Poncirus cross.
Hybrids are preferably produced from mothers that have more zygotic progeny and fathers that produce enough viable pollen.
Mitochondria and chloroplasts are inherited from mother plant, so seed parent participates a little bit more in a resulting hybrid.
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Thanks guys. So, when describing the hybrid the mother plant is listed first? Ex: poncirus trifoliata ( mother) x citrus reticulata (father)?
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Yes