Characterizing hybrid populations of Actinidia arguta var. arguta and related species

Abstract

Commercial cultivars from the genus Actinidia are mainly derived from larger fruited species like Actinidia chinensis var. chinensis and A. chinensis var. deliciosa. Small-fruited species such as Actinidia arguta var. arguta have been of interest for their smooth fruit skins and novel flavours, but have had limited commercial success to date, primarily because of their shorter storage ability and less robust handling properties. The New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Limited (PFR)'s Motueka site has intra- and inter-specific populations based on A. arguta and other small-fruited Actinidia sp. We present data frequency distributions and correlations to demonstrate the variation in agronomically important traits. This is done by using various descriptive statistics, as well as fitting a mixed model which incorporates the pedigree structure in addition to year and trial effects, to obtain the best linear unbiased predictions (BLUPs) for all species and hybrids.