Inheritance pattern of quality traits in fruit crops

1. Mango (Mangifera indica): The mango is not a convenient plant for genetical analysis due to its long life cycle, cross pollination and high degree of heterozygosity, lack of detail information on its inheritance pattern, intricate arrangement of saxes on the panicle and excessive fruit drop. However, the inheritance of some characteristics has been worked out which are readily analysed. Iyer and Subramanyam (1979) and Singh et al. (1981) believe that presence of prominent beak and marked sinus on the fruit is controlled by dominant genes. The genetics of fruit colour has not been studied in detailed but available reports indicate that it is governed by a number of genes, different combinations resulting in different colour (Iyer, 1991). This is contrary to the findings of Sharma (1987) that red colour is dominant over green. Thus when a coloured variety “Janardan Pasand” was crossed with some green fruited varieties, a wide array of colour was observed in the progenies (Iyer and Subramanyam, 1979). Fruit size is an important character which is governed by polygenes. Observations on fruit size in five parental combinations involving cvs Neelum, Totapuri Red Small, Banglora, as parents indicated that fruit size of the hybrids, in general, was inferior. However, some hybrids in all combinations showed increased size over the better parent (Sharma and Majumdar, 1985). Heterosis and transgressive segregation for fruit size in F₁ progenies have also been observed (Yadav, 1997). As regards pulp colour, though there was some dominance of light yellow colour to orange, the gene action was primarily additive both within and among loci (Iyer, 1991). Nayak et al. (2013) conducted a study to evaluate the genetic variability for fruit quality in mango progenies. The results showed the existence of genetic variability among progenies with differences in the progeny performance for the traits. Value of phenotypic coefficients of variation was higher than genotypic coefficients of variation but minimum difference was noticed between them. Comparatively high degree of genotypic coefficients of variation (GCV) along with phenotypic coefficients of variation was observed in quality traits like, fruit weight, fruit volume, pulp: stone ratio and total carotenoids. High heritability along with high genetic advance was estimated for fruit weight and fruit volume. Genetic parameters estimated for fruit quality traits of mango may be useful to formulate pre-selection criteria and efficient breeding strategies of mango for development of new hybrids.

2. Banana (Musa paradisiaca): Compared to cereal crops detailed genetic and cytological investigations in Musa spp. are limited. Both banana and plantain have been ignored and neglected as material for basic genetic research (Ortiz, 1995). Genetic studies show that the autonomous stimulus that culminates in fruit parthenocarpy is due to several (at least three) complimentary dominant gene (P1, P2 and P3) in Musa acuminata (Simmonds, 1976). In addition some modifier genes are responsible for the parthenocarpy in banana and the mechanism responsible for the parthenocarpy is independent of the mechanism inducing sterility (Israeli and Lahav, 1986). The genetic mechanism controlling Fruit size and weight is governed by epistatic or non-additive action of genes (Polequin and Ortiz, 1992).

3. Citrus (Citrus spp . ): Sexual progenies from hybridization are commonly highly variable. Single gene inheritance is rarely found and F₁ offspring often display a wide quantitative range of character expression (Furr, 1969). Several undesirable characters such as Small fruit size, seediness, paleness of colour and presence of oil gland in juice sacs and rinds appear to be dominant (Soost,1987).

4. Papaya (Carica papaya): The studies with regard to iinheritance of quantitative characters are limited in papaya. Wasee et al. (1983) found that additive gene effects controlled fruit weight, fruit shape, flesh thickness and total soluble solids. Dinesh (1989) also found that additive gene effects controlled the characters fruit length, fruit breadth, cavity index, total sugar and total carotenoids. Singh (1990) reported that yellow color of flesh is dominant over orange or red flesh color. Fruit flavor and odor is governed by multiple genes (Yadav and Prasad, 1990).

5. Guava (Psidium guajava): Heritability in the broad sense encompasses all types of gene action including dominance, additive, and epistasis. Considerable research effort has gone into estimating the heritability pattern in guava. It has been observed that commercially important traits, such as yield, fruit size and quality characteristics (Vitamin C, acidity, pectin etc.) are often in low – heritability category. None of these characters are determined solely by major genes, although basic genes, subject to the modifying effects of polygenes, have been identified for some quality characters like skin color and acidity. However, the red pulp color is dominant over white and this character is governed monogenically (Subramanyam and Iyer, 1982). Many cultivated red fleshed varieties were found to be heterozygous for this character. Similarly, bold seed in guava were found to be dominant over soft seeds and this character was also found to be governed monogenically. A linkage was also found between red pulp color and bold seed size (Subramanyam and Iyer, 1982). Obovoid shape of the fruit is dominant over round and pyriform.

6. Grape (Vitis vinifera): Inheritance pattern has been studied extensively for different characters, viz. yield and quality attributs (Avramov et al., 1996); Seedlessness (Spiegel- Rao et al., 1980), time of ripening and aroma (Hirakawa et al., 1998). In grape, 3 major colours viz. white, red and black are found. Segregation for character supports a 2-gene hypothesis where B, a gene for black fruit is dominant and epistatic to that for red and white fruit (Barrit and Einset, 1969). Red fruit (bb Rr) is dominant to white which is recessive for both genes (bbrr). Sandhu and Uppal (1988) infer that berry colours are not sharply differentiated but observations show that black is dominant over both red and white, and red colour is dominant over white, although most of the red and black varieties appear to be heterozygous. Avramov et al. (1996) have also observed almost similar colour inheritance pattern. According to Wagner (1967), muscat flavour is controlled by five 5 complimentary dominant genes. Hirakawa et al. (1998) observed that inheritance of muscat and labrusca flavour obeyed the rule of independent assortment. Their results suggested that six complimentary dominant genes were involved in the inheritance of muscat flavour and five in labrusca flavour. Singh et al. (1985) could observe that larger berry size is dominant over small. The wide variation in the progenies with regard to berry shape showed that it is a polygenecally inherited character. Seedlessness in grape controlled by recessive factor.

7. Apple (Malus x domestica): Anthocyanin pigmentation in Malus pumila is controlled by a single dominant gene (Lewis and Crane, 1987). Brown and Harvey (1971) reported that fruit size, shape and acidity is governed by polygenes and high acidity was found to be dominant over low acidity.

8. Pineapple (Ananas comosus): Quantitative fruit characters like size and quality (acid and sugar content) have been reported to be governed by polygenic inheritance (Loison, 1990).

9. Litchi (Litchi chinenesis): Abortion of seeds at later stage of fruit development appears to be a recessive character (Dwivedi and Mitra, 1996).

10. Pomegranate (Punica granatum): inheritance studies carried out indicated that high acidity was always dominant to low acidity, pink aril colour and hard seed nature was dominant to soft (Jalikop et al., 2005). Hard seeded pomegranate had higher fruit weight and volume that soft seeded ones (Jalikop and Kumar, 2005).

11. Almond (Prunus communis): Bitterness is inherited as a simple, single recessive genes (ss) in cultivated almond. Sweetness is dominant transmitted from homozygous (SS) parents as 100% sweet and segregates from heterozygous parents as sweet to bitter ratio of 3:1.

References

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Indian Hort .,

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About Author / Additional Info:
Author is a PhD student in Division of Fruits & horticultural Technology, Indian Agricultural research Institute, New Delhi, India