AYA and HANA: New Seedless Mandarin’s Triploid Hybrids Selected in Morocco

Abstract

Seedlessness is a major objective in Morocco Citrus improvement programmes. Triploidy has played an important role in the development of new seedless mandarin cultivars for fresh fruit market and has received increasing attention for the consumers. For that, many series of diploid crosses were assessed. At maturity, the fruits have been harvested, and small embryos were extracted from undeveloped seed and cultured on the medium of Murashig and Skoog supplemented with 1mg/l gibberellic acid according. Triploids seedling selected by flow cytometry analysis were budded on Troyer citrange and planted in INRA domain with spacing 6 m X 3 m. Tow new seedless selections of mandarins have been evaluated in a citrus breeding program at Morocco INRA: Hana and Aya that were compared with their female parent clementine Sidi Aissa. These promising seedless mandarins were identified by easy-peeling, juicy fruits, have a pleasant taste and are sweet like the Sidi Aissa Clementine. These clones, showing commercial interest, were described and registered in Moroccan official catalogue.