INHERITANCE OF SWEET KERNEL TASTE IN APRICOT

Most of the European apricot cultivars have a bitter kernel taste.
Sweet kernel taste is among the desirable traits in apricots, which is mostly found in Asiatic origin cultivars. ‘Orangered’, a PPV resistant, self-incompatible, with floral abnormalities, but with high fruit quality, sweet kernelled apricot cultivar of American origin, has been used as a male parent in a cross with the bitter kernelled, high fruit quality, local cultivar ‘Bebecou’. The purpose of using these two parents was the possibility to select those hybrids that have inherited resistance to PPV and the most desirable character¬istics such as productivity, high fruit quality, self-compatibility and sweet kernel taste.
More than two hundred seedlings of this hybridization created in the year 2001 have been studied in the last two consecutive years regarding the taste of their seeds.
The aim of this work was to investigate the mode of inheritance of the sweet kernel character in apricot in order to be considered, among others, for the selection of new cultivars.
When the slightly bitter kernel was classified as sweet, the ratio of the bitter vs. sweet hybrids was 1:1. This consideration supports the hypothesis of a monogenic inheritance of the sweet kernel taste in apricot, after crossing a heterozygous bitter kernelled parent with a homozygous sweet.

XIV International Symposium on Apricot Breeding and Culture

I. Karayiannis

bitter kernel, apricot, inheritance, amygdaline

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2010.862.9