Author
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Havey, Michael |
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Submitted to: National Allium Research Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 11/10/2016 Publication Date: 11/30/2016 Citation: Havey, M.J. 2016. Molecular-aided selection of male sterility for hybrid development in onion [abstract]. National Allium Research Conference. Paper No. 20. Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: Maintainer lines are used to seed propagate male-sterile lines for the development of hybrid-onion cultivars. Selection of maintainer lines is more efficient using molecular markers that distinguish cytoplasms and genotypes at the nuclear male-fertility restoration (Ms) locus. Onion cytoplasms can be confidently distinguished by markers in the organellar DNAs. Ms has been mapped to the centromeric region of chromosome 2, which is a region of low recombination and explains why so many molecular markers have been identified tagging this locus. We used random plants selected from three open-pollinated populations of North American onions to assess the predictability of markers tightly linked to Ms. Although a few markers showed tight association with Ms, one marker (AcPms1) correctly predicted genotypes at Ms in all three onion populations; however AcPms1 did not always correctly predict genotypes at Ms in onion populations from the Indian sub-continent. These results indicate that markers tagging Ms may be successfully used in some populations, but may not perform as well for more divergent onions. |
