Kunzea pomifera(muntries): selection validation and evaluation of important horticultural traits

Abstract

The native food industry in Australia has been developed for nearly 40 years. This industry is focussed on 13 crops, including quandong and muntries (or muntrie berries). There are approximately 20 selections of muntries such as 'Rivoli Bay' and 'Maarten's Favourite'. 'Rivoli Bay', the industry standard selection, was chosen for evaluation at Mount Pleasant, South Australia, Australia from February to March 2014. Assessment was performed on five trellised 'Rivoli Bay' plants. Methods for the evaluation of muntries fruit size and fruit quality characteristics (texture, total soluble solids and total phenolic content) were developed from existing methods for other fruits. Variability between the five 'Rivoli Bay' plants was higher than expected for all assessed fruit characteristics, given that plants are clonally propagated, which is possibly due to an environmental effect. Results obtained for n=3 technical replicates produced low standard deviation suggesting the methods developed for assessing muntries fruit characteristics can be used in the future. To determine genetic diversity and identify cultivars, molecular markers are commonly used. We applied this approach to muntries and primers for moleculars were designed in introns or at intron-exon boundaries of eight Myb gene fragments that include one or two short introns. Three PCR fragments sequenced contained polymorphic sites between the selections. These polymorphisms included insertion/deletions (Indels) and a clear single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) where several individuals were heterozygous for the SNP. Our data suggested that heterozygosity is common in 'Rivoli Bay' as expected for a preferentially outcrossing species.