Author Topic: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?  (Read 2985 times)

poncirsguy

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 713
    • Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 6a/6b
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #25 on: April 26, 2023, 08:51:58 AM »
are loquats self fertile.

pagnr

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 941
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #26 on: April 26, 2023, 09:03:36 AM »
are loquats self fertile.

Now that you mention it, one of my Loquat seedlings is under a shadehouse , not affected by fruitfly, so probably not visited by bees either.
Also quite a way from another Loquat tree.
It does throw variable leafed seedlings.
I guess it is self fertile but variable from seed.

drymifolia

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 617
    • Seattle 9a/sunset zone 5
    • View Profile
    • the drymifolia collective
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #27 on: April 26, 2023, 12:12:44 PM »
pagnr, yes, I also have many loquat seedling trees. Some will be very identical in taste, fruit size, and vigor as the parent tree. But the good thing is, most do not come true from my experience and that is where I get the best tasting new varieties in my collection. I have over 20 loquat seedlings that have already fruited for me so I'm saying this from experience.

What I was hoping is if I can determine from the seedling size if anyone them will not be a clone but is still a vigorous grower, then I would baby that tree until I get some fruits. I don't really need any clones of the parent tree varieties; I have all of them in my collection so it's much easier to graft onto seedlings if I wanted more of the same variety I have.

Like I said before, I'm pretty sure zero loquat seeds produce clones. I don't think loquat is known to produce apomictic (clonal) seeds at all. So, even though the seedlings may sometimes look identical, they are not genetically identical. This time I googled it and couldn't find any scientific papers that discussed any clonal seeds from loquat.

So have no fear, none of them should be clones!

sc4001992

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3900
    • USA, CA, Fullerton
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #28 on: April 26, 2023, 12:46:56 PM »
,.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2023, 07:47:12 AM by sc4001992 »

caladri

  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 131
    • Canada, British Columbia, Salt Spring Island, USDA 8b/9a
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #29 on: April 26, 2023, 01:02:18 PM »
drymifolia, there may not be any studies because loquats are not as popular as other fruit trees.

This may be true from a hobbyist American perspective, but loquat is culturally and economically important in China and Japan, and is increasingly important in Europe, with significant development occurring in Spain. A simple Google Scholar search would show that there is significant, ongoing, and fairly comprehensive research on loquat ongoing in many parts of the world. The idea that scholars and horticulturalists and agriculturalists have failed to notice nucellar embryony in loquat is fairly absurd. You can read articles on how loquats have the genes to be self-incompatible but that mechanism is subverted due to other genetic differences. I spent an hour yesterday reading about a dozen papers from the last ten years on the mechanisms that prevent loquat reproductive compatibility with other Malinae, due primarily to mechanical incompatibilities — and speculation in light of both mechanical and phylogenetic analyses about which other genera loquat might be compatible with. You might enjoy reading about other Eriobotrya which are somewhat compatible with E. japonica and which flower at different times of the year, which are extremely significant for increasing the ability of loquat to grow commercially in a wider range of the world (think: perhaps a third the range of apples, instead of the limited range due to flowering time.) Similarity in loquat seedlings observed by members of this forum is more likely down to the extremely small number of introductions of loquat genetics from China and Japan to the West, such that there is relatively limited genetic diversity (addressing which is an urgent priority to at least Spanish and Italian agriculturalists.)

drymifolia

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 617
    • Seattle 9a/sunset zone 5
    • View Profile
    • the drymifolia collective
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #30 on: April 26, 2023, 02:29:31 PM »
drymifolia, there may not be any studies because loquats are not as popular as other fruit trees. But from my growing of seedling loquats, I notice majority of the new seedling tree fruits tastes similar to the parent tree fruits. I did get 3 exceptional seedling trees with fruits out of 20 seedling trees which fruited for me. The other fruits were very similar to my main variety I grow on my multi-grafted tree (Big Jim).

As @caladri says in the other reply above, it's not that there is a lack of research, I found plenty of papers with discussions of genetic analysis of loquat ancestry, loquat physiology, and loquat breeding. But none of them indicate any occurrence of apomixis, even though that would be pretty important to include in those kinds of papers.

Loquat often produces similar or seemingly identical offspring, but they are not actually genetically identical, no matter how similar their phenotype may be.

sc4001992

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3900
    • USA, CA, Fullerton
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #31 on: April 26, 2023, 03:39:03 PM »
Ok, got it.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2023, 03:44:38 AM by sc4001992 »

drymifolia

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 617
    • Seattle 9a/sunset zone 5
    • View Profile
    • the drymifolia collective
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #32 on: April 26, 2023, 06:49:07 PM »
I have not found much that talks about the seedling germination and if they will grow true or not.

It is paywalled but you could start with something like Genetic Diversity of Three Cultivars and Their Descendants from Degenerative Seeds in Loquat Analyzed by RAPD Markers from the third International Symposium on Loquat in 2011, which looked at 57 seedlings and compared them to their parents' DNA. None of them were identical, the closest match was actually between two siblings (91% match), none of the parents were closer to their offspring than that. So at least those three cultivars do not seem to produce any clonal offspring.

Digging deeper, the 2013 article Breeding Loquat by Maria Hudenes et al includes an extensive discussion of the embryology of loquat that does not mention any possibility of nucellar embryony or other apomixis:


Obviously it's possible that some loquat somewhere has spontaneously evolved the ability to produce clonal offspring, but that would be pretty big news and so far no one has found evidence for it or I'm pretty confident it would've been published.

sc4001992

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3900
    • USA, CA, Fullerton
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #33 on: April 26, 2023, 07:05:41 PM »
Ok, thanks for the additional info.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2023, 07:48:15 AM by sc4001992 »

Lyn38

  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 46
    • northern Ca zone 8
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #34 on: April 26, 2023, 09:30:27 PM »
unless I happen to find a known mandarin I like in the grocery store that has seeds & lists as TTT

I don't know of any mandarin that is 100% nucellar, but you could also just try to grow all the embryos in a single polyembryonic seed. Then, you are basically guaranteed that most of the seedlings are clones, and if one of them looks different than the rest as they grow up, then it's probably the zygotic one.

Thank you Drymifolia , that's good information.

Lyn38

  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 46
    • northern Ca zone 8
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #35 on: April 26, 2023, 09:36:19 PM »
I stand for plant genetic identity preservation and i think this "true to type" seeds thing causes a lot of damage and confusion in this regard. You can have a clone from a seed but that's probably the worst way to do that and you are probably not able to identify it with high confidence. People often do this because seeds is all they can get, so they don't even own the original plant to compare with. If you want to do this for fun, that's great, but if you don't have the means to do the proper identification, please keep your plant for yourself, don't sell or share genetic material as if it came from the original plant

I agree and would not be sharing any of it unless I tried the fruit, and even then wouldn't call it by the parent name.

I think it's too much for me anyway, the more I think of it, at least right now. I don't so much mind the wait to see what I'd get, as I mind the wait plus greening disease headed my way eventually.

Lyn38

  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 46
    • northern Ca zone 8
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #36 on: April 26, 2023, 10:01:59 PM »
Kind of off-topic, but this thread is going off-topic anyway.. and there are a lot of experienced people here..

What chances do you all think that days-old cuttings might possibly root? I just got back from a nonprofit that has a very sentimental and very cold hardy lemon. Someone hacked at it severely on Saturday and the staff spent some time convincing me to try and root the 4 days-old branches that were left on the ground. It was hot today.. I promised them I'd try but I'm not at all optimistic about it. The tree is hard to root cuttings from anyway, I've done it before. I'm soaking the branches half submerged in a barrel right now and will re-cut them smaller tomorrow then put in liquid rooting hormone to soak it up for another full day. I have been able to root some older wood on this tree before - it just took 8 months. EDIT - but it was fresh..  & no, I don't have any rootstock and I doubt very much I could find any for 150 miles and then I'm going into a potential quarantine area.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2023, 10:28:41 PM by Lyn38 »

Lovetoplant

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 291
    • Oxnard,ca
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #37 on: May 02, 2023, 06:41:15 PM »
I started Florida honey tangerine from seed.  It took 10 years to flower and fruit.   This is its 3rd year to fruit.  Fruits are only a third of its parent's size and have lots of seeds.  Flavor was good

cassowary

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 606
    • Australia FNQ 13a Tropical Monsoon
    • View Profile
    • cassowaryseeds
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #38 on: June 04, 2023, 08:43:35 PM »
Just plant a large number of tree's from seed and terminate the undesirable ones and plant new ones in their spot. In 9 years you are likely to have heaps of new seeds that you wanna trial.
That's what I am doing despite I can get a lot of grafted tree's here.
CASSOWARYSEEDS.COM
Seed shop and Seed exchange

Bush2Beach

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2141
    • Santa Cruz, California Sunset Zone 17
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #39 on: June 05, 2023, 02:16:30 AM »

You can order Citrus tree's from Four Winds , they're located in the SF Bay Area so would probably arrive in a day or 2





Kind of off-topic, but this thread is going off-topic anyway.. and there are a lot of experienced people here..

What chances do you all think that days-old cuttings might possibly root? I just got back from a nonprofit that has a very sentimental and very cold hardy lemon. Someone hacked at it severely on Saturday and the staff spent some time convincing me to try and root the 4 days-old branches that were left on the ground. It was hot today.. I promised them I'd try but I'm not at all optimistic about it. The tree is hard to root cuttings from anyway, I've done it before. I'm soaking the branches half submerged in a barrel right now and will re-cut them smaller tomorrow then put in liquid rooting hormone to soak it up for another full day. I have been able to root some older wood on this tree before - it just took 8 months. EDIT - but it was fresh..  & no, I don't have any rootstock and I doubt very much I could find any for 150 miles and then I'm going into a potential quarantine area.

LittleCitrusLover

  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 11
    • Bay Area - East Bay 10a
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #40 on: June 18, 2023, 02:34:04 AM »
If you get a zygote that's a clone, it will be mostly the same apart from mutations that arose in the germ cells in the parent. When you're copying a whole genome, there will always be mistakes. I can't speak for how similar they are to the parent typically, but there can be variation in several nucellar embryos from the same parent. IE, the clones will all differ slightly.

pagnr

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 941
    • View Profile
Re: how true-to-seed is true-to-seed?
« Reply #41 on: June 18, 2023, 03:45:52 PM »
If you get a zygote that's a clone, it will be mostly the same apart from mutations that arose in the germ cells in the parent. When you're copying a whole genome, there will always be mistakes. I can't speak for how similar they are to the parent typically, but there can be variation in several nucellar embryos from the same parent. IE, the clones will all differ slightly.

I am finding quit a few regrown fruiting Citrus rootstock plants around here, mainly Citrange, Swingle and Rough Lemon.
I think I can fairly assume that the rootstock seed all came from the one approved source in Australia.
Out of these types, I am not seeing 100 % identical fruit on the trees of any one variety.
These three are highly clonal types, suitable for uniform rootstocks.
It is unlikely that only off types are the lucky ones to survive and fruit.
( on the other hand there may be compatibility issues with off types causing graft failure, but that seems a long shot ).
I am not seeing any major differences in foliage on these trees. You can clearly tell that they are Swingle, or Carrizo Citrange or Rough Lemon.