Breeding of Fruit and Plantation Crops 2 + 1

Breeding methods and achievements

Introduction

• Some important cultivars including soft seeded , dark red grained types, viz. Wonderful from the USA, A.Males, Be Hastah, A Alah, A Agha,Mohammed Ali, A Post Sephid Sirin from Iran and Ranninj G-1-8-23,Rannyij G-1-3-34, Chereny,Gulsha Red, JG-1-8-7 from USSR and few cultivars from Tunisia have been introduced. At Hissar, cultivar Shirin Anar and Russian Seedling were found resistant to bacterial leaf spot. A pomegranate line of Iranian origin has been indentified at Rahuri which has dark pink arils, soft seeds and high TSS (Singh and Rana, 1993).

Selection

• Many pomegranate types cultivated in India are of seedling origin. They offer a wide range of variability with respect to shape and size of fruits, mellowness of seeds, aril colour, rind colour, sweetness and acidity. On the basis of yield and physico-chemical characters of fruits , number of cultivars have been recommended for commercial cultivation in different states of India,viz. Ganesh, G-137,P-23,P-26 and Muscat in Maharashtra, Bassein Seedless, Jyothi and Madhugiri in Karnataka, Dholka in Gujarat, Jalore Seedless, Jodhpur Red , and Jodhpuri White in Rajasthan and Kabul Red, Vellodu, Yercaud 1, and Co-1 in Tamil Nadu. Two ornamental types (Japanese Dwarf and Double flower giving red, yellow and white flowers) are planted in the omamental gardens (Nath and Randhawa,1959).


• Due to considerable variability and their adaptability to existing agro-climatic conditions, selection of superior genotypes will be the best approach to get desirable ideotypes. The cultivar GBG-1 is a selection from open pollinated population of Alandi in 1932. The name Ganesh was given in 1970. Five Muskat types, namely P-13, P-16, P-23, P-26 and SK-1 were identified by Naik (1975). Further, P-23 and P-26 were released in 1986 for commercial cultivation by MPKV, Rahuri. At the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore as a result of evaluation of seedling populations raised from Bassein Seedless and Dholka Varieties, GKVK-1 now named as Jyothi was released. At Coimbatore self seeded selection Co-1 was identified (Khader et al., 1982).

Clonal Selection

• G-137 is a superior clonal selection over Ganesh, other clones are also superior i.e.G-107,G-132,G-133. Sayed et al.(1985) reported a clone Acc.No.455 which has been renamed as Yercaud-1 and released for commercial cultivation in Tamil Nadu.

Hybridization

• In order to incorporate blood red colour of Russian types into Ganesh, several crosses were made at Rahuri in 1976.Out of 122 F1 hybrids, seven had deep red aril colour but the seeds were hard and inferior in taste than Ganesh. A promosing line from the F2 population (No.61) combining desirable quality attributes has been released by the name Mridula (Ganesh x Gulsha Rose Pink).



Mutation

• Use of physical (x rays) and chemical mutagens (N, N-dimethyl N.nitrosourea) may help in the development of the superior cultivar of soft seeded types (Levin, 1990).

Biotechnological tools

• Attempts have been made to regenerate the plant by using leaf (Omura et al., 1987) and shoot tip explants (Mahinshni et al., 1991). Enzyme based marker was also used to identify the genetic variability among the existing genotypes. Somatic embryogenesis was also practiced by using petal as explant (Nataraja and Neelambika, 1996).
• Important characteristics of some promising selections raised from open pollinated fruit of F1 hybrids of pomegranate (Keskar et al., 1993).
Characteristics	Sel-5 (Ganesh x Shirin Anar)	Sel-130 (Ganesh x Gulsha Rose Pink)	Sel-303 (Ganesh x Gulsha Red)
Fruit colour	Apple red	Greenish brown	Yellowish brown
Fruit weight (g)	130	107	140.0
Fruit size LxB (cm)	6.9x6.5	6.1x6.5	5.5x6.8
Aril colour	Blood red	Dark red	Blood red
Mellowness of seeds	Soft	Soft	Soft
Taste	Sweet	Sweet	Sweet
No.of grains/100g	58	94	45
Grain peel ratio	1.17	1.17	1.80
Juice colour	Dark red	Blood red	Blood red
Juice (%)	80	80	80
TSS (%)	18.4	15.8	19.0
Acidity (%)	0.64	0.80	0.64


Cultivars of pomegranate grown in different states
Name of the states	Cultivars
Rajasthan	Jalore Seedless, Jodhpur Red,Jodhpuri White.
Haryana	Ganesh,Muskat Red,Paper Shell.
Gujarat	Dholka,Muskat Red,Paper Shell.
Maharashtra	Ganesh,G137,P23,P26,Muskat Mridula
Karnataka	Bassein Seedless,Jyothi, Madhugiri
Tamil Nadu	Co-1, Yercaud, Vellodu, Kabul Red.


Description of important cultivars
Alandi

• Also known as Vidaki, medium fruit size, fleshy testa, blood red or deep pink with sweet, slightly acidic juice with hard seeds.
Dholka

• Large fruit size, greenish white rind, fleshy testa, pinkish white or whitish with sweet juice, soft seeds and acidic juice.
Kabul

• Large fruit size, rind deep red mixed with pale yellow, thick, fleshy testa dark red, slightly bitter juice.
Kandhari

• Fruit large in size, rind deep red, fleshy testa, blood red or deep pink with sweet, slightly acidic juice, hard seeds.
Muskat red

• Fruit small to medium in size, rind somewhat thick, fleshy testa with moderately sweet juice, seeds are semi hard.
Paper Shell

• Fruit medium in size,rind thick,fleshy testa, reddish pink with sweet juice and soft seed.
Spanish Ruby

• Fruit small to medium in size, rind thin, fleshy testa rose coloured, soft seed.
Ganesh

• Prolific bearer, medium fruit size, soft seeds, sweet in taste.
Jyothi

• Also known as GKVK-1, attractive yellowish red fruit colour, medium fruit size, red aril colour and soft seeds.
Vellodu

• Fruit medium to large in size, rind moderately thick, fleshy testa, juicy, seed moderately hard.
Poona

• Fruit large in size, fleshy testa, deep scarlet or pink and red.
Bedana

• Fruit medium to large in size, rind brownish or whitish, fleshy testa, pinkish white with sweet juice and soft seeds.
Bhagwa

• It is developed by MPKV, Rahuri. It is tolerant to thrips and mites, it is free from blackening of arils and there is no incidence of fruit cracking. Fruits have cherry red bold aril.
Phule Arakta

• It is also developed by MPKV, Rahuri. Plant is heavy yielder with bigger fruits and sweet soft seed. It is less susceptible to fruit spots and thrips