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Millet
Citruholic
Joined: 13 Nov 2005
Posts: 6657
Location: Colorado
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| Posted: Tue 27 Aug, 2013 1:53 am |
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The ponkan mandarin is the likely FATHER of the sweet orange. The MOTHER of the sweet orange (its seed parent) is almost certainly a hybrid that is 3/4 pummelo and 1/4 mandarin, said Fred Gmitter Jr. professor of citrus genetics at the University of Florida, speaking at the International Citrus congress in Valencia, Spain. (Published in the September issue of the Fruit Gardener, a publication of the California Rare Fruit Growers (CRFG) magazine. - Millet |
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jcaldeira
Citruholic
Joined: 06 Jan 2012
Posts: 98
Location: Fiji Islands
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| Posted: Tue 27 Aug, 2013 3:04 am |
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I'm surprised. My guess would have been that a sour orange had a role in it. |
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ilyaC
Citruholic
Joined: 04 Sep 2009
Posts: 273
Location: France, 40km South of Paris
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| Posted: Tue 27 Aug, 2013 5:33 am |
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| Millet wrote: | | The ponkan mandarin is the likely FATHER of the sweet orange. The MOTHER of the sweet orange (its seed parent) is almost certainly a hybrid that is 3/4 pummelo and 1/4 mandarin, said Fred Gmitter Jr. professor of citrus genetics at the University of Florida, speaking at the International Citrus congress in Valencia, Spain. (Published in the September issue of the Fruit Gardener, a publication of the California Rare Fruit Growers (CRFG) magazine. - Millet |
Draft sequence of sweet orange genome was published in the January 2013 issue of Nature Genetics journal. The authors concluded that sweet orange originated from the backcross of initial pummello/mandarin hybrid to manadarin. It is 1/4 pummello, 3/4 mandarin.
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Best regards,
Ilya |
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hoosierquilt
Site Admin
Joined: 25 Oct 2010
Posts: 970
Location: Vista, California USA
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| Posted: Tue 27 Aug, 2013 5:58 pm |
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Fascinating, Millet. Again, the Ponkan mandarin strikes another positive cord in the world of citrus. Glad I have a couple in my orchard, it is an excellent mandarin.
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Patty S.
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Millet
Citruholic
Joined: 13 Nov 2005
Posts: 6657
Location: Colorado
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| Posted: Tue 27 Aug, 2013 5:59 pm |
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There seems to be other genetic scientists that have not so surprisingly commented that it is extraordinary that the research Genome Consortium had sequenced only two potential mandarin parents, among the literally hundreds of possibilities, and just happened to select the right one, ponkan. - Millet |
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pagnr
Citrus Guru
Joined: 23 Aug 2008
Posts: 407
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Tue 27 Aug, 2013 8:30 pm |
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As for the choice of mandarin parent, you can eliminate all modern known types, including those created by Swingle etc ( ie king X willowleaf ).
If you suspect the Orange originated in China, you could eliminate mandarin types exclusive to Indochina, Japan, Korea, etc.
That leaves a shorter list of possibilities. You may find historical records that indicate the mandarin varieties known before the Orange originated in your target region. Your list of possibilities gets shorter.
Even then Ponkan must be a hybrid of ancestral types, or possibly extinct cultivars it replaced. I think deciphering Citrus parentage difficult by any method. Citrus genetics, with ploidy changes and nucellar seed is complex. |
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Millet
Citruholic
Joined: 13 Nov 2005
Posts: 6657
Location: Colorado
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| Posted: Tue 27 Aug, 2013 9:01 pm |
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*Actually the only two mandarins the Genome Consortium selected for analysis were the Ponkan, and a Mediterranean type called Willowleaf mandarin (the first kind to make it from China to the Mediterranean, and the New Wold, in the 19th century). The two kinds were selected for analysis by the consortium because they seemed to be pure prototypical mandarins, however, they turned out to have a small portion of pummelo in their ancestry. - Millet
* (Fruit Gardner magazine CRFG September edition) |
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