Breeding of Fruit and Plantation Crops 2 + 1

Genetics of apomixis

• Stebbins (1958) stated that as a rule, the apomictic condition is recessive to sexuality, although polyploidy apomicts show tendency towards dominance. However, this recessiveness is not usually due to a monogenic difference.


• Since there is frequent reversion of apomicts to normal sexuality or sterility or the occurrence of some abnormal genetic behavior in crosses involving an apomictic and an amphimict increases involving or two apomicts of diverse origins, it appears that a successful apomictic cycle is the result of an interaction of many genes which tend to break on hybridization.


• It is only in the relatively simple type of apomixis like adventitive embryony and vegetative reproduction that simple genetic behavior can be expected. Recently, Vardy et al. (1989) recorded three recessive genes with additive effects which are responsible for parthenocarpy.