Apple is a temperate fruit species with several breeding disadvantages such as the highly heterozygous nature of the genome and a long reproductive cycle. It is expected that homozygous apple genotypes can increase breeding efficiency, but inbreeding is prevented by the gametophytic self-incompatibility mechanism. In this paper, the production and characterization of homozygous genotypes, generated from anther culture in Malus · domestica cv. ÔBraeburnÕ, is described as well as their potential for use in breeding programmes. After determination of large scale anther culture efficiency, anther culturederived genotypes were simple sequence repeat (SSR)-fingerprinted to determine their homozygous nature and confirm their androgenic origin. Their value for breeding was estimated based on growth and fertility measurements. The use of homozygous androgenic genotypes from ÔBraeburnÕ in apple breeding programmes is currently not a realistic approach, partly because of the low efficiency of anther culture, but mainly because of the reduced vigour and severe sterility of the androgenic genotypes produced.

No abstract

No abstract