Breeding of Leucospermum to obtain clayey and/or alkaline-clayey soil tolerance hybrids

The development of proteas cultivation in the Canary Islands, has been based in recent years on cultivars of Leucospermum (pincushion). The expansion of crops in climatologically suitable areas for growing these plants, presents difficulties due to the presence of clayey and/or alkaline-clayey soils.
In 2012 a program for the production of hybrids with tolerance of those types of soils was started using as parents three pincushions tolerant to clayey and/or alkaline-clayey soils: L. patersonii, L. ‘High Gold’ and L. ‘Spider’ that crossed each other and with cultivars available at that time: Leucospermum cordifolium ‘Vlam’, L. ‘Succession II’, L. ‘Tango’ and L. ‘Veldfire’. Almost all of the crosses were successful.
The number of seeds per flower varied from 1.3 at the crossing of L. ‘High Gold’ × L. ‘Spider’ to 18 at the crossing of L. ‘Spider’ × L. patersonii. Germination percentage of the 42.8% of the crosses was between 58.3 and 100%. In general, the crosses in which L. formosum and L. tottum (parents of L. ‘Spider’) intervened gave the highest number of seeds per flower (8-18), followed by crosses in which L. patersonii participated with 50% of the genome or more.
The use of L. ‘Spider’ as a parent appeared to be more suitable than L. patersonii, and L. ‘High Gold’, as it yielded the highest seed production per flower and the highest seed germination percentages in its crosses.

XIV International Protea Research Symposium

A.M. de León-Hernández, M.C. Vera-Batista, V. Herrera-González, M. Hernández, I. Rodríguez-Hernández, J.A. Rodríguez-Pérez

cut flowers, pincushion, proteas, Proteaceae, South Africa

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2022.1347.8