Zygotic Poncirus hybrids

[Till]

There are some in a Japanese genbank called NIAS (https://www.gene.affrc.go.jp/databases-plant_search_char_en.php?type=61). They had some cultivars that were 100% zygotic at least some years ago when I first scanned the genbank.

The existance of zygotic Poncirus hybrids like Phelps and Sanford Citrange also shows that Poncirus has the potential to be 100% zygotic. Nucellar embryony is dominantly inherited so far as I am informed. So if at least these two hybrids are zygotic the cultivar used in creating them must have been heterozygous for nucellar embryony. And that means that its offspring when selfed may be pure zygotic Poncirus.

[Ilya11]

Till,
They do not list zygotic seeds, just monoembryonic ones. This is a very different story.

[Till]

Hmm. I was not careful enough. Thank you for the remark, Ilya.

[sc4001992]

When I transplanted the FD seedlings in my photo above, I did notice many, almost half of the seedlings were poly, more than one stem growing from one seed.

Here's a few photos I took of the poly seeds.Can anyone tell me which one of the poly seedling will be the clone of the parent FD.

[Millet]

Mostly nice seedlings, except for the two shown in picture #3.  Those are called  J roots, and will give the tree continues  problems.   Almost all growers growers toss them out.

[sc4001992]

Is the J root the ones that start curled up then loops downwards?

[Millet]

SC400 yes those are the J rooted seedlings

[sc4001992]

ok, thanks. I have more so I will keep an eye on these and throw out the seedling if the roots grow bad.

[mikkel]

On the other hand weak roots are sometimes correlated with less thorns or precocious flowering. Just in case this is of interest.

[sc4001992]

Yes, that would be neat if there were no thorns on the FD, it hurts when you get hooked.

[Citradia]

So, is the bigger seedling the clone or the little one?

[sc4001992]

That was my question as well. I thought it was the larger one but wanted to hear from the experts who crossbred them.

[kumin]

On occasion the zygotic seedling is more vigorous than the nucellar one(s). Many cultivars essentially produce no viable zygotic embryos. Others produce 100% zygotic embryos. The issue becomes apparent in populations of mixed types. Visual inspection will help find seedlings with identical appearances. These are likely to be nucellar in origin, except in cases where is little genetic variability in both the seed and the pollen parents. Monoembryony is  not always synonymous with zygotic embryony. Seeds may produce a single nucellar embryo.
If the pollen parent shows very distinct characteristics, such as Poncirus does, determining embryonic origin is greatly simplified.