Early flowering bud-sport mutant derived from Japanese apricot ‘Nanko’

Recently, a Japanese apricot (Prunus mume) bud-sport mutant ‘Hayazaki Nanko’ derived from ‘Nanko’ was discovered by a Japanese apricot grower in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan.
The blooming period of ‘Hayazaki Nanko’ is approximately one month earlier than that of ‘Nanko’. ‘Hayazaki Nanko’ can be considered as a valuable plant material for tree bud dormancy and tree flowering phenology research.
So far, however, comparative genetic and genomic studies on ‘Hayazaki Nanko’ and ‘Nanko’ have yet to be conducted, thus genetic relationship between ‘Hayazaki Nanko’ and ‘Nanko’ has not been confirmed.
In this study, we conducted phylogenetic analysis by using publicly available sequencing data of 118 Japanese apricot cultivars including ‘Nanko’ and resequencing data of ‘Hayazaki Nanko’. We found that ‘Hayazaki-Nanko’ was more closely related to ‘Nanko’ than other cultivars.
Moreover, the genotyping of the pistil determinant gene of self-incompatibility, S-RNase, by using the gene-specific primer set revealed that S-RNase genotypes of ‘Nanko’ and ‘Hayazaki Nanko’ are identical.
Based on these results, it was confirmed that ‘Hayazaki Nanko’ is highly likely a bud sport mutant derived from ‘Nanko’. Further comparative genetic and molecular characterizations among ‘Hayazaki Nanko’, ‘Nanko’ and other ‘Nanko’ bud sport mutants will provide valuable insights for our understanding of flowering phenology and bud dormancy in Japanese apricot.

IV Asian Horticultural Congress – AHC2023

M. Sugimori, T.-F. Hsiang, H. Yamane, Y. Kitamura, R. Tao

Prunus mume, bud sport, early flowering, bud dormancy

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2024.1404.142