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« on: December 29, 2022, 04:21:29 PM »
I did grad work in genetics but I was studying vegetables and grain so this might not appply to citrus. If anyone does know the effects of tetraploidy in citrus, listen to them, not me.
In vegetables, a few species have more vitamin C in the tetraploid than the diploid. But generally the difference is small or none at all.
In grains, wheat, rye and barley, tetraploids tend to be slightly less cold hardy than the same variety at the diploid level. That is for rye (Secale cereali), barley (Horeun sativa) which are normally diploid. Wheat (Triticum species) has diploid, tetraploid, and hexaploid species. In Triticum, we can't directly compare diploid vs higher ploidy because there has been centuries of selection for different climates so the genetics is much more important than ploidy.
So I expect the difference between diploid and tetraploid citranges to be small. But there are a few plant families that don't follow the general rules. So it is possible citrus don't follow these general rules.