Assessment of the germplasm of apple grown in Kashmir valley. IV. Pollen mother cell meiosis of 58 diploid varieties under cultivation in Kashmir valley.

Abstract

Fifty eight diploid varieties of cultivated apple (Malus pumila Mill.) having 2n=34 have been recovered from different orchards of Kashmir valley. Data on chromosome pairing reveal that meiosis is normal in most of these. Nevertheless, such anomalies as precocious or delayed disjunction of some bivalents, occurrence of secondary associations, heteromorphic bivalents and univalents, chromosome lagging and fragmentation, formation of micronuclei and unequal anaphasic segregation are frequent in some varieties and provide evidence of their gybrid nature. These observations also throw some light on the controversial problem of the base number of apple.