I was thinking of starting a topic named something like “Citrus breeding for dummies (aka Peep)”
Not sure now if I should create my own topic, or put everything here. I’ll put it here for now.
I've been making a few notes that I wanted to include in it, and ask for some people to contribute. I get confused often with words such as Zygotic, so for example I made these notes:
- Zygotic embryos are sexually produced and inherit genetic material from both parents, resulting in a hybrid seedling.
- Nucellar embryos are asexually produced and genetically identical to the parent plant
- Polyembryonic seed can contain multiple zygotic embryos, multiple nucellar embryos or contain both (a) zygotic and nucellar embryo(s).
- Smaller embryos are considered zygotic, and are often found more towards the micropyle end (tip of the seed), whereas larger embryos are usually nucellar.
- The direction of a cross may be indicated by including the sexual symbols (♀: female; ♂: male) in the formula, or by placing the female parent first.
Then I also wanted to list good resources on how to make the pollination in practice:
https://fruitmentor.com/breeding-growing-citrus-from-seed…
And collect some tips:
- As @kumin pointed out in another topic, when making a cross, you can inspect the flower to check if pollen has not yet been released, but you can also remove the anthers more in advance, after which you wait for the stigma to mature and become receptive to pollen. If the stigma is moist / sticky, it is usually an indication of it being ready to accept pollen.
- And now another tip from @lauta_hibrid is to remove each flower that is not pollinated by you. Described as removing the competition. Making sure that the plant only produces the fruits that are intentionally pollinated will give a higher chance of a successful fruit set and having the fruits mature.
My problem:
I have many cultivars, and even though my plants are small, if I have a chance this spring and summer I want to try breeding them. The problem is that I’m not sure which cultivars produce zygotic and/or nucellar seeds, or have sterile pollen. I don’t want to spend all my effort trying to make a cross pollination with a combination that isn’t viable.
I made a few notes on seed types, but most of what I have are hybrids.
Mandarin = highly polyembryonic
Paradisii = polyembryonic
Maxima (pummelo) = zygotic
Kumquats = zygotic
So I made a new google spreadsheet with my plants, and thought that maybe some of forum members with more knowledge could write in the document if the cultivar is zygotic, nucellar, etc. and I can check if it is best used as male or female parent:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15-ZkvCNcXmXNeLvi2XqKinxofuKsxkwT6ENBtiCNHeM/edit?usp=sharing @a_Vivaldi made a similar list for general use:
https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=51232.0 which I used to add some information in my list.
@BorisR mentioned having a similar document as well.
And here is also information on seed type of certain cultivars:
http://citruspages.free.fr/classification.php This way I can look in this list of my plants whenever they flower and see if I can make a useful cross pollination.
The approach I want to take is probably a little different, because I don’t want to use Poncirus.
This is as example of what I would like to try, if they are viable combinations:
Ichangmoï x Kumquat (Nameiwa or Marumi) -> make an “Ichangmoïquat”
Ichangquat 672 x Shekwasha
Ichangquat 672 x Yuzu
Ichangquat 672 x Kishu
Ichangquat 672 x Changsha
Ichangquat 672 x Yuzumelo (Yuzu x Citrumelo)
Yuzumelo (Yuzu x Citrumelo) x Ichangquat 672
Yuzumelo (Yuzu x Citrumelo) x Changsha
Yuzumelo (Yuzu x Citrumelo) x Kishu
Yuzumelo (Yuzu x Citrumelo) x Yuzu