Male meiotic behavior of apple germplasm in Kashmir: Towards understanding the evolution of Apple

Abstract

Summary In recent years, chromosome studies have assumed great importance in resolving problems of phylogeny and planning out strategies for breeding. About 200 varieties of apple cultivated in Kashmir valley have remained neglected from this angle. The present communication puts on record details of pollen mother cell meiosis of 19 apple cultivars. Earlier the meiotic analysis of most of the Kashmir apple germplasm was performed by a few workers but the cultivars included in the present study were analyzed for the first time and their ploidy status have not been published anywhere. All the cultivars revealed diploid nature with n=17. Data on chromosome pairing revealed that meiosis is normal in most of the cultivars. However, anomalies such as precautious or delayed disjunction of some bivalents, occurrence of secondary associations, heteromorphic bivalents and unequal anaphasic segregation are frequent in some cultivars and provide evidence of their hybrid nature. The frequency of meiotic aberrations ranged from 3.29% in Red Delicious to 8.42% in Balgarian Ambri. Pollen fertility results indicated that the maximum pollen fertility was recorded in Red Delicious (95.85%) followed by Kullu Delicious (95.40%) and Molies Delicious (94.85%) while as the minimum pollen fertility was recorded in Oregon Spur (83.33%). All the presently investigated cultivars have shown more than 80% pollen fertility.