ISHS Acta Horticulturae 810: IX International Vaccinium Symposium
FLOWERING AND POLLINATION STUDIES WITH VACCINIUM DARROWII CAMP AND OTHER VACCINIUM SPECIES FROM FLORIDA |
| Authors: | D.J. Chavez, P.M. Lyrene |
| Keywords: | Florida evergreen blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum, southern highbush blueberry, sparkleberry, V. arboreum, V. fuscatum, blueberry breeding |
| Abstract:
In the early 1940s, Camp described the Vacciniaceae as an ancient group resulting from evolutionary changes, speciation through sterility barriers and a high incidence of polyploids. In the early 1950s, Sharpe and Darrow cooperated to produce the foundation crosses by which diploid V. darrowii Camp, hexaploid V. ashei Reade (syn. = V. virgatum Aiton), and tetraploid northern highbush were brought together to originate the “southern highbush” blueberry. However, Florida’s Vaccinium species, and even the V. darrowii genetic pool, have not been extensively studied as possible sources of genetic variation. To analyze the V. darrowii gene pool, sixteen clones from the Florida panhandle and two from the Lake Istokpoga region in the central Florida peninsula were maintained in a greenhouse during flowering from October 2006 to August 2007. Six additional clones were studied during pollination and ripening from February to November 2007. Maximum flowering for clones from both regions occurred during the same period, from February 21st to March 24th. Istokpoga clones produced twice as many flowers per plant as Panhandle clones. To assess fertility, 250 flowers per plant were self and cross pollinated. Cross pollination among V. darrowii clones gave an average fruit set of 82.5% for the panhandle clones and 69.8% for the Istokpoga clones, the difference not significant at the 1% level. For self pollination, fruit set averaged 18.2% for the panhandle race and 22.8% for the Istokpoga race, the difference between regions again not significant. Within each race, cross pollination gave higher fruit set than self pollination, the difference significant at 1%. The pollination-to-ripening period within V. darrowii clones did not differ significantly for self and cross pollination, or between regions. The pollination-to-ripening period for tetraploid highbush cultivars, V. darrowii and V. arboreum cross-pollinated with other clones from the same species, was 53.7 days, 83.8 days, and 151.7 days, respectively, the differences significant at the 5% level. | |
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