Genetic dissimilarity of ‘yellow’ and ‘sleep’ passion fruit accessions based on the fruits physical-chemical characteristics

C.B. Cardoso-Silva,A.C. Oliveira,C.B.M. Cerqueira-Silva,R.X. Corrêa,J.V.A. Nonato

doi:10.12702/1984-7033.v09n03a02

Abstract

The intra- and inter-specific genetic dissimilarity between 14 'yellow' passion fruit plants and eight 'sleep' passion fruit plants were evaluated through nine physical-chemical descriptors, whose measured values were submitted to descriptive (average, standard deviation and variation coefficient) and inferential (univariated (ANOVA, averages and correlations tests) and multivariated (Mahalanobis distance, hierarchical clustering, Singh coefficient and Mantel test)) statistics. Intra- and, especially, inter-specific variability were found among the passion fruit plants (p < 0.001). The total soluble solid, equatorial diameter, total titratable acidity, and fruit weight descriptors presented the highest percentage of relative contribution, totaling 85.2% of the observed divergence. Preferential crossings among genotypes with physical- chemical characteristics of desirable fruits and useful genetic dissimilarity in divergent and convergent crossings were identified.

Highlights

The Passifloraceae family originated from tropical America and is comprised of about 530 species, of which approximately 150 are distributed in Brazilian territory (Bernacci et al 2005)
The ‘yellow’ passion fruit (Passiflora edulis Sims) is highlighted for being cultivated in a great majority of the Brazilian fields used for the production of passion fruit (Meletti et al 2005), significantly contributing to Brazils position as the world’s largest passion fruit producer and exporter (Ferreira et al 2005)
14 are ‘yellow’ passion fruit (UESB-Pef-G1 a -G14), originating from the germination of seeds of fruits collected in Vitória da Conquista street markets and characterized for the reaction to the Cowpea aphid-borne mosaic virus (Cerqueira-Silva et al 2008), as well as possessing genotypes previously identified for the high (UESBPef-G11 and -G13) and low (UESB-Pef-G3 and -G5) prolificity, e.g., production of fruits

Summary

Introduction

The Passifloraceae family originated from tropical America and is comprised of about 530 species, of which approximately 150 are distributed in Brazilian territory (Bernacci et al 2005). The fruits, from 4 to 13 for genotype/species, were evaluated in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of UESB - Vitória da Conquista, for nine physical-chemical descriptors: fruit weight (FW), equatorial diameter (ED), longitudinal diameter (LD), pulp weight with seeds (PWS), peel weight (PW), peel thickness (PT), pH, total soluble solids (TSS) expressed in oBrix and total titratable acidity (TTA).

Results

Conclusion