Inheritance of Procumbent Habit from `Cipo' Sweet Orange in Crosses with `Clementine' Mandarin

Abstract

`Cipo' sweet orange [Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck] combines typical midseason fruit characteristics with a unique procumbent growth habit. This distinctive habit may be of value in breeding smaller and more procumbent scion cultivars if the growth habit is transmitted to hybrid seedlings. Two hybrid populations were created using `Clementine' mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco) as the female parent and either `Cipo' sweet orange or `Pineapple' (another midseason sweet orange with a more typical upright growth habit) as the male parent. The `Clementine' × `Cipo' cross yielded many hybrids with the procumbent habit, many with the upright habit, and some that appeared intermediate. Both hybrid populations were compared with nucellar seedling populations from `Cipo' and `Pineapple' using two morphological characteristics that differentiate between the procumbent habit of `Cipo' and the upright habit of `Pineapple'. All the `Clementine' × `Pineapple' hybrids were of upright growth habit, while the `Clementine' × `Cipo' progeny segregated into two groups based on growth habit (upright and procumbent). The two measured characteristics were tightly correlated in the segregating population and are probably pleiotropic effects of the same genetic mutation. The observed population distributions were as expected if the procumbent habit in `Cipo' is controlled by a single dominant allele in the heterozygous condition.