GENETICS AND BREEDING OF ASPARAGUS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE

The asparagus breeding program at UCR emphasizes development of high yielding cultivars adapted to the Mediterranean and desert climates of the major production areas of California.
This paper provides an overview of the program.
We are developing clonal-hybrid and all-male hybrid cultivars from California and European germplasm.
Supermale parents have been identified among progeny of andromonoecious males by test-crossing to females and sexing progeny.
Rapid identification of supermales is facilitated by a sex-linked polymorphic PCR marker that we developed by sequencing a RFLP marker originally identified by Biffi et al. (1995). The first few all-male hybrids are now in initial field trials.
We are studying the inheritance of andromonoecy in crosses with lines having a high proportion of andromonoecious plants to determine whether this trait can facilitate development of a large number of supermales.
Inheritance of branching height and correlations among branching height, sex, and spear quality are also being investigated.
In five of the six crosses studied, females had significantly higher branching height and larger cane diameters than males.

IX International Asparagus Symposium

Mikeal L. Roose, Neil K. Stone

Asparagus officinalis, molecular markers

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1999.479.12