A novel twisted bud mutant from Ziziphus jujubaMill. ‘Dongzao’

Abstract

The twisted growth of organs is a distinctive and attractive trait for woody plants. A bud mutant with twisted branches was discovered from ‘Dongzao’, the most popular and tasty table cultivar of Chinese jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.). This study explored the morphological and nutritional characteristics and SSR marker changes of the novel variant. Compared to its mother plant and an external control ‘Dongzao’, the variant had shorter fruit (oblate rather than round) and shorter bearing shoots with smaller internode length. Although the sugar/acid ratio increased in the variant fruit, the soluble sugar, titrated acid and ascorbic acid contents of the fruit were not significantly different between the variant and its mother. No differences in the DNA fingerprint were observed between the variant and its mother using 50 pairs of SSR primers. The novel twisted variant of ‘Dongzao’ could be a valuable germplasm for jujube breeding because it has high-quality fruit and good yield. It also has great potential for direct economic utilization and could be used as a desirable material for research on the mechanism of twisted growth.