Zygotic Poncirus hybrids

[martweb]

Which Poncirus hybrids are at least partially zygotic?

[Florian]

Citrandarin US 852 and Sacaton Citrumelo are known to produce only about 50% or so nucellar seeds. Also, Ilya has made many hybrids with his Citrumelo 5*. I would prefer the 5* over Sacaton since the latter tastes awful even for a Citrumelo.

[Ilya11]

I recently found that SwampLemon PT is partially zygotic.

[kumin]

US 1279, 1281, and 1282 are essentially 100% zygotic . Changsha x Poncirus for 1279.
Cleopatra x Poncirus for 1281 and 1282

[martweb]

Thanks for all current and all further replies. It is good also to know which of them are tastier.

[mikkel]

IVIA-450    Poncirus Monoembriónico at IVIA and Monoembryonic trifoliate at UC Riverside are at least not polyembryonic thus probably zygotic.

https://ivia.gva.es/va/busqueda-por-orden-alfabetico-nombres-comunes

https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/crc3888


@Ilya How do you distinguish zygotic from nucellar seedlings in Poncirus, aside from obvious polyembryonic seedlings?

[Ilya11]

When I pollinated SwampLemon by IVIA pollen, 90% of seedlings had leaf morphology in between ichangensis and PT and most also had a red color of new shoots.

[martweb]

How about ichangensis x sinensis?

[Till]

Ilya sent me some Poncirus+ seeds two years ago. There was some variation in the seedlings. And I would say there were also tetraploid seedlings. It is difficult though to count the exact number of zygotic seedlings. Most look too similar. They can be zygotic or not.

Batumi Citrumelo has zygotic seeds at least some at least when the right pollen is used. Batumi Citrumelo has a very good taste. But it is sour.

Sanford Curafora is probably zygotic. I have read about hybrids and I had a bundle of seedlings that were all zygotic (though not very vital except one that was not hardy...)

C35 is said to produce 10% zygotic seeds. Phelps and Sanford Citranges are 100% zygotic. But I could not get them in years. Very frustrating.

What about African Shadock x Poncirus? My fruits are not yet ripe. So I have no own experience by now.

[Zitrusgaertner]

Ilya sent me some Poncirus+ seeds two years ago. There was some variation in the seedlings. And I would say there were also tetraploid seedlings. It is difficult though to count the exact number of zygotic seedlings. Most look too similar. They can be zygotic or not.

Batumi Citrumelo has zygotic seeds at least some at least when the right pollen is used. Batumi Citrumelo has a very good taste. But it is sour.

your batumi CM comes from ADAVO?

[Till]

Good question where it is from. I got it as budwood via Mikkel. As far as I remember he got it from a czech source, from a private person. You may ask Mikkel if he remembers from whom. It is some years ago.

[poncirsguy]

I believe Flying dragon is 50% zygotic.

[Citradia]

So, if flying dragon is 50% zygotic, is that why some of my flying dragon seeds make seedlings that resemble standard poncirus with straight trunks and thorns? That would imply that flying dragon would be good to try making hybrids with, right?

[poncirsguy]

I think so.  Yes. 

[Till]

I have read that the growth habit of Flying Dragon is caused by one dominant gene or allel. So it could easily be outbread. But that would also mean that there is perhaps not one Flying Dragon around but many Flying Dragons with different genealogies, different numbers of zygotic seeds, different taste etc.
What is your impression? I have not much experience with Flying Dragon myself.

[Florian]

I have read that the growth habit of Flying Dragon is caused by one dominant gene or allel. So it could easily be outbread. But that would also mean that there is perhaps not one Flying Dragon around but many Flying Dragons with different genealogies, different numbers of zygotic seeds, different taste etc.
What is your impression? I have not much experience with Flying Dragon myself.

I have thought so before. The description from The Citrus Industry Vol. 1 (1967) cited by the UCR website says: Grown primarily as a potted plant, this is a highly dwarfed variety with very small leaves, the leaflets of which are commonly reduced to linear filaments, and slender crooked branches armed with large, downward-curved spines.. My flying dragon certainly does not have linear filaments as leaves. Also, I have tried to pollinate it a few times and not once had a hybrid which one would expect in a 50 % zygotic plant. And all of my seedlings are dwarfed and contorted; there has never been a regular type seedling.

[mikkel]

I have had FD seedling batches with almost 100% normal growth habit.

[kumin]

Were regular Poncirus trees blooming nearby?

[mikkel]

I can not say. The seeds were given to me.

[kumin]

I would expect Flying Dragon flowers being pollinated by regular Poncirus to have a fewer Flying Dragon seedlings.

[pagnr]

For commercial Citrus rootstock seed production I don't think there is any attempt to exclude pollination from other nearby rootstock Citrus types.
That is in mixed plantings or rootstock seed trees, including FD and PT.
Off types may need to be removed, but the seedlings are usually highly uniform for rootstock use.
I have found variants in rootstock seed, but never thought they were pollinated hybrids.

[sc4001992]

I just planted out my seeds from the Flying Dragon tree I have, here's a few photos of the seedlings. They look very similar to me. I have many other varieties grafted on the tree and another tree 10 feet from the FD.

[poncirsguy]

https://crec.ifas.ufl.edu/extension/citrus_rootstock/tables.html

[Till]

Nice table! Data of Poncirus certainly depends on the cultivar. Poncirus can have 100% zygotic seeds or hardly 1%.

[Zitrusgaertner]

Nice table! Data of Poncirus certainly depends on the cultivar. Poncirus can have 100% zygotic seeds or hardly 1%.

Never heard of 100% zygotic Poncirus

[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.

[Till]

African Shadock x Poncirus is highly polyembryonic. I had my first fruits. I pollinated with Chandler and a citrumelo (name dubious but most probably F1). The taste of the fruit was, by the way, not very inviting: bitter, sour, resinous, juicy only when let on the tree for very long a time. Seeds were not fully developed in March. So can only be used as pollen parent. Pollen is abundant and probably good: My Chandler had a lot of seed set with it.

[sc4001992]

I have an update on my Flying Dragon seedlings I germinated early in the photos.

It appears to me that mono seeds are uniform in height, the poly seeds have the different size height and shape. I did have a few albino seedlings but looks like they either died or changed back to green color. Anyone interested in seeing a photo?

[sc4001992]

Till, I saved some pollen of the Banpeiyu pomelo if you can use it. My tree had flowers a month or so ago, now its holding fruits (yah) for the first time this year. I also have both the small fruit (no thorns) and larger fruit (big thorns) Kaffir lime so I should be able to get some pollen when it flowers.

[poncirsguy]

Yes.  I would like to see photos.

[sc4001992]

ok, will take photos later today and post tonight.