Rubus glaucus Benth.: morphology and floral biology aimed at plant breeding processes

Abstract

Rubus glaucus is widely distributed throughout the three mountain ranges of Colombia, where the blackberry growers have highlighted the need to standardize the supply of planting material, starting with plant breeding schemes that lead to more productive varieties with morphological characteristics that ease agricultural activities. Plant breeding activities have improved by considering the pollination mechanisms of plants. The implementation of controlled sexual hybridization depends on these pollination mechanisms, and several plant breeding methods have been adapted to crop pollination patterns. Morphological characteristics and studies on the floral biology of R. glaucus Benth were conducted to improve plant breeding processes. In addition, a study on pollen viability and stigma receptivity were performed. The reported morphological characteristics of R. glaucus enabled characterization of its flowers as complete and perfect with a regular, actinomorphic, perianth heterochlamydeous, dialipetalous, and dialisepalous structure. Meanwhile, the evaluation of different collection times for pollen viability revealed significant differences. The highest pollen viability occurred at 10:00 am, followed by 9:00 am. Qualitative evaluation of stigma receptivity led to the conclusion that the highest stigma receptivity is at anthesis at 12:00 m.

Morphological characteristics of Indonesian Rubus flowers

“…Flower morphology shows the pollination mechanisms of Rubus and determines the most pollinator visits often. Likewise, investigation of the fertility behavior of internal verticils (androecium and gynoecium) allows the designing of improvement for breeding programs of the species (López et al 2019). Our study shows that the variety in the floral morphology of Rubus would straightly impact the diversity of flower characters for pollination knowledge and breeding systems.…”

“…Reproductive biology and flowering observations of some Rubus species (Raspberry, Blackberry) have been reported from America, North American, New Zealand, Norway, and Britain (Williams 1959;Heide and Sønsteby 2011;Nielsen et al 2017;Hodnefjell et al 2018;López et al 2019). Most of these studies focused on single or commercials species.…”

Diversidad genética de Rubus glaucus Benth en el municipio de Pamplona (nororiente de Colombia)

“…Se estima que esta diversidad de especies y variedades, se debe a que el género Rubus es heterocigoto con un amplio nivel de ploidía [4], y según Graham y Woodhead [4] es "diploide 2x=2n=14 hasta dodecaploide 12x=2n=84". Se ha demostrado que estos niveles de ploidía ocurren por la hibridación entre especies, considerándose como aloploide [5,7] y además R. glaucus es alotetraploide (4x=2n=28) [8,9].…”