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Encanto Farms Nursery > Topics > Use of induced apomixis in the breeding of figs
 
 


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aphahn

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Posted Reply with quote  #1 
I recently got a copy of the article Use Of Induced Apomixis In The Breeding Of Figs through our interlibrary loan program. It is an interesting read, and attached for those that are interested.

A few interesting take aways:
  1. Edible caprifigs may not be needed to produce new varieties of common fig
  2. Seedlings that result from induced apomixis are new varieties and vary widely from the parent
  3. Viable seed can be formed (by induced apomixis, not hybrids) by pollinating a fig with mulberry, lily, or other Moraceae pollen
  4. Kinetin, and NAA (both readily available) can also be used to induce viable seed formation
It sounds like the author of the paper introduced some varieties that resulted from these experiments. They would have originated from the Nikita Botanical Gardens, anyone have any idea what varieties they might be?

All in all very interesting. I'll be experimenting with induced apomixis this summer, as well as hopefully making some crosses if my caprifigs produce pollen.
If anyone else gives it a try or has done it, I'd love to hear the results.

 
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pdf ApomixisInBreadingFigs.pdf (335.14 KB, 77 views)


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Posted Reply with quote  #2 
Interesting read.
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Posted Reply with quote  #3 
What are apomixis. Is it a che.ical or fertilizer that you root in. This,is,really cool. I will read
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aphahn

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Posted Reply with quote  #4 
In short apomixis is creating a viable seed without pollination. In other words seeds from only a single parent.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apomixis

Merry Christmas!
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Posted Reply with quote  #5 
Ok its a compound used in cunjuction with pollen taken from a mulberry or other pollen injected into female fig. Then those seeds will produce a different fig?? Is this correct. Really cool stuff
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Posted Reply with quote  #6 
I will re read it. Thanks,
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Bass

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Posted Reply with quote  #7 
Thanks for sharing, this is a paper by Nikitski botanical garden, in the Crimea peninsula. They released many unique hybrids of fruit trees, I have some of their varieties. As for figs they had a few varieties some are common some we rarely hear about. 
Will be reading it thoroughly. 
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Posted Reply with quote  #8 
Theoretically they should have been clones by doubling the chromosomes but methods used must have genetically altered the DNA and produced hybrids.
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Posted Reply with quote  #9 
They were talking about using mulberry polin to inject into a fig. Did i read,this,correctly
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So_Cal_Mike

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Posted Reply with quote  #10 
The one that made me do a double-take was the lily, why would lily pollen be compatible with a fig?
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aphahn

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Posted Reply with quote  #11 
Wayne, while I only have a rudimentary grasp of genetics, that is what I would have expected as well. In fact I sought out the paper hoping to come up with a way to remove FMV from infected varieties. As it turns out the genes get rearranged in the process, so that would not work. The author does discuss a theory about what they expect is happening, but I only partially understand it.

Figpig, Mike,
Yes mulberry and Lilly pollen as well as others. It is not that the pollen is compatible with fig, it is more of an irritant that induces apomixis. Maybe there are hormones in the pollen that trigger it, I'm not really sure what the mechanism is.
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Posted Reply with quote  #12 
Thanks Andy!
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aphahn

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Posted Reply with quote  #13 
Thought you might like it Greg. Check out the difference in subsequent apomictic generations between the pollen and hormone treatments. I wonder if cold hardiness will be a variable as other traits. Let me know if you give it a try.
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Posted Reply with quote  #14 
Quote:
Originally Posted by aphahn
Yes mulberry and Lilly pollen as well as others. It is not that the pollen is compatible with fig, it is more of an irritant that induces apomixis. Maybe there are hormones in the pollen that trigger it, I'm not really sure what the mechanism is.


I was thinking that perhaps the pollen was tricking it into "thinking" it was pollinated, which makes sense with mulberry, as it is related to the fig.
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mic

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Posted Reply with quote  #15 
> In short apomixis is creating a viable seed without pollination. In other words seeds from only a single parent.

Coincidentally a Christmas theme!

Seriously though this is very interesting. 

Is it saying they found when using foreign pollen the first generation may be good but second generation is always poor?

When it says "forms with valuable recessive traits were detected", does this mean recessive traits were revealed and these traits were positive?

Thank you for posting.
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Posted Reply with quote  #16 
Mic like how,you broke it,down to,simple terms. Pollen is,used as a tool not a parent. And liked the Christmas joke too. Lol
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So_Cal_Mike

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Posted Reply with quote  #17 
A recessive trait just means it is hidden by dominant traits. Like blue eyes are recessive for example. It has nothing to do with the trait being a positive or negative trait.
Remember learning about Gregor Mendel and his pea plants?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel

edit - though I guess if they are saying the traits are valuable, they must be saying that they felt that they were useful traits in some way.
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aphahn

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Posted Reply with quote  #18 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mic
In short apomixis is creating a viable seed without pollination. In other words seeds from only a single parent.
Coincidentally a Christmas theme!

I was hoping someone would catch that!

From what I gather the second generation of apomictic seedlings from pollen show inbreeding depression. It was not clear if all of the second generation would be weak or just some percentage.

For the recessive traits, yes. Lots of positive traits are recessive, the sugar enhancer gene in corn is a good example. For a recessive trait to be expressed (when only one gene is involved) both copies of the particular gene must be the recessive version.
One example of a recessive trait in figs is being a smyrna, so some apomictic offspring of a common fig could potentially need the wasp. Not that we would find that positive :)
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Posted Reply with quote  #19 
Hi aphahn,
Unfortunately that paper is not precise enough, although it helps in stating that figtrees can be apomictic.
First question I would have is : Is a common fig tree self apomictic ?
That is does a common fig tree able to generate seeds without pollination, since they make fruit without pollination .
In which region where those tests made ? As fig pollen could pollute the results. It is sad that they don't describe more the seedlings, and
especially the time needed for fruit production start.
Well that's a good start at least .
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aphahn

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Posted Reply with quote  #20 
Jds, several of your questions are answered in the paper. They did not detect spontaneous apomixis. The experiments were done in the Crimea, and the researchers took steps to prevent outside pollination.
However, it is just a review paper, and I also want to know more. There are other papers (cited in the references) that give a detailed account of how the seedlings did. I have been unable to get a copy of those papers yet, either in English or the original Russian. I'm not sure if you would have better luck in Europe or not, but it might be worth a try. I would be especially interested in the two papers that cover the variation of seedlings, but any paper on figs by N. K. Arendt would be very informative.

Didn't you have some seedlings that appeared to be apomictic? How are they doing? It will be interesting to see it they are clones of the parent or vary like the induced case.
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Posted Reply with quote  #21 
http://www.referun.com/n/ispolzovanie-razlichnyh-metodov-selektsii-pri-sozdanii-novyh-sortov-inzhira .
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Posted Reply with quote  #22 
Hi Aphahn,
My Zone7 seedlings are the reason why I asked .
Crimea has all zones from 3 to 10 . That does not help me a lot :) . Fun to see that part of the world experimenting with figs ...

As for my seedlings from December 2013 , well, to make a long story short, raising such a fig tree is a pain ! Well even worst, it is a real PAIN and heart breaking .
After lots of adventures, I'm left with 3 growing . 2 still look like unhardened weeds and the thicker half hardened is starting to look like a young tree. But now is Winter ... I hope I don't kill them .
Clearly, if I let them go dormant I'll loose them .
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Posted Reply with quote  #23 
That's an interesting paper, Vladis.   Thank you for posting.   Are you growing the varieties produced by the breeding program at Nikitski-
«Смена», «Ароматный» и «Приятный»,?

Coming from the northern perspective myself, the ficus afganistanus crosses sound intriguing for the possiblity cold-hardiness.   Also the authors' conclusion that such crosses happen on a larger scale in nature, surely some of these have been selected over time and brought into cultivation.
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Vladis

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Posted Reply with quote  #24 
At this time, many varieties of figs and hybrids in the NBS were killed. I grow a hybrid variety of NBS "Sabrutsiya pink", it requires pollination wasp.
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Posted Reply with quote  #25 
One thing I'm curious about with the foreign pollen approach to apomixis is whether or not any of the resulting first generation figs were common figs.  The paper did say that several first generation plants were selected as good producers, but it didn't say that they were common types.  The reason I'm curious is because the persistent gene exists in all common figs, but it isn't donated from the mother, only from the pollen parent.  With common figs half the eggs have the persistent gene and those half abort when they are pollenated.  But with apomixis the eggs are not actually pollenated, they just double their chromosomes from the diploid state back to the haploid state.  In that case one would expect the possibility of seedlings with either no persistent gene, and therefore a Smyrna, or with two copies of the persistent gene, which would presumably act as common figs assuming they don't abort.  The issue with those plants would then be that they cannot be pollenated to produce viable seeds because presumably all the seeds would abort.  I'm curious if any of this has been explored...with figs who knows what they'll really do.

Perhaps more interesting might be the idea of creating a homozygous persistent caprifig.  Could one then have strains of caprifigs that will only pass on the persistent gene and therefore create only persistent seedlings when used to pollenate figs?  If so then the result would be seedlings that are half common figs (the other half being persistent caprifigs) rather than only one quarter common figs.....you'd only have to grow half the number of plants when breeding to find the result you're seeking.  Would be nice.
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aphahn

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Posted Reply with quote  #26 
Thank you Vladis! It is going to take me a while to digest that, but on my initial reading I found some interesting points.

"Most prone to the method of reproduction were apomictic cultivars figs, fruit-usually in the presence of cross-pollination and fertilization [ie smyrna]. Only one parthenocarpic sorta- "Kadota" was found a tendency to induced [apomixis]"
I wonder how many of the varieties tested were common figs, and if we will be able to find any more that will produce apomictic seed.

Greg, I think this gives the answer to one of your questions, but I'm not sure what the answer actually is. Google translate is failing me here ;) 
"In the study of the biological characteristics of individual varieties of seedlings apomnktncheskih " Kadota "it turned out that the property to develop narteiokarpncheskie fruit proyavilos- only a small part of the plant (10%). The rest of the seedlings did not show such a tendency. In the variety " Sarylov "part of the seedlings was prone to partenokarpncheskomu development of the fruit, while the mother plant and its hybrid forms of this ability is not. Thus the property of sa-moplodnostn taking place at the initial variety, may have apo-.miktnchsskih seedlings did not appear, and vice versa, in some part apomnktncheskih seedlings samobesplodnogo varieties can be found penchant for partenokarpni."

Vladis, could you tell us if the apomictic seedlings of kadota or the smyrna figs produced offspring that were common figs (don't need the wasp)? This is the russian:
При изучении отдельных биологических особенностей апомнктнческих сеянцев сорта « Кадота » выяснилось, что свойство развивать нартеиокарпнческие плоды проявилось- лишь у небольшой части растений (10%). Остальные сеянцы не проявили такой склонности. У сорта « Сары лоб » часть сеянцев оказалась склонной к партенокарпнческому развитию плодов, тогда как материнское растение и его гибридные формы такой способностью не обладали. Таким образом, свойство са-моплодностн, имеющее место у исходного сорта, может у апо-.миктнчсских сеянцев не проявляться и, наборот, у какой-то части апомнктнческих сеянцев самобесплодного сорта может быть обнаружена склонность к партенокарпни.
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Posted Reply with quote  #27 
So the crux of this is that the progeny displayed traits the parent did not, and traits different from each other. So the agent or the process is turning genes on. I wonder if just the mechanical irritation of getting hit with a foreign pollen tube can initiate apomixes. I also wonder if the mutagenic properties of the agent cause the variation. This paper sure raises way more questions than it answers - and that's a good thing.
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Posted Reply with quote  #28 
Dale, the progeny display differences from the parent because they only have half the genes that the parent has and each seedling has a different mix of the half that it got.  Because of that there is no blending or dominance of traits from having two different genes for a trait....now the resulting seedlings will have two genes for each trait that are identical.

In this process the parent's pair of chromosomes line up with each other, undergo crossing over (where the parent's pairs of chromosomes blend a bit), and then the pairs get pulled apart so there is only one of each of the 13 chromosomes that make up the diploid reproductive cells.  Normally upon pollination the pollen brings it's own set of chromosomes and the resulting seedling ends up with 13 pairs of chromosomes like the parent (the haploid state where for figs 2n = 26).  But in this apomixis condition the pollen is incompatible and does not supply chromosomes so the egg is left with only the single set of chromosomes from the mother.  However, something from the foreign pollen or chemical they used causes the egg to copy it's single set of chromosomes so that there are 13 pairs of identical twin chromosomes which gives the cell the 26 chromosome haploid state.  It then grows into a haploid seedling.  In effect it sheds a great number of the parent's genes, with each resulting seedling loosing different genes and therefore resulting in genetically unique seedlings.

The paper also did mention some mutagenic properties noted when chemicals were used so that a few new gene modifications resulted.  But for the most part it's just the loss of genes from the parent that creates the changes to the progeny.
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Posted Reply with quote  #29 
Greg,

   Thanks. I didn't get that they were haploid. I didn't think they would be viable at haploid numbers, but that sure explains the variation. So do these plants ever undergo meiosis? What do their gametes look like? What's the critical number of chromosomes for viability, and which?
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aphahn

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Posted Reply with quote  #30 
Greg, the paper does claim the seedlings are diploid. What you are saying makes sense, but with my limited understanding I can't quite reconcile the two. Are you saying they are only diploid in the sense they have 26 chromosomes, and functionally haploid because it is just a double set for the egg?
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Posted Reply with quote  #31 
I think I wrote that post too early in the morning!  The paper says the seedlings are diploids...but they get to the diploid state by first undergoing standard meiosis to the haploid state, then the chromosomes get doubled to become diploids (the "post-reduction doubling").  Sorry for the confusion Dale.  I almost went back and edited my post to clean it up a bit, but figured I'd leave it like that so folks know what you were asking.

Andy, yes, but I'd phrase it as they are diploids, but because the chromosome pairs are identical they are homozygous on all loci.  I'm not 100% certain that that's what's happening, but that's my best guesstimate from the paper's description.  It explains why this method produces variable seedlings and why it's a strong method for finding recessive genes, but I'm not quite certain why the next generation becomes weaker because I would assume that the F2 generation would then end up identical to the F1 generation.....????  Very odd to me.  If anything I'd expect that to happen for the mutagenic compounds rather than non-mutagenic foreign pollen (if that is true).
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Posted Reply with quote  #32 
Hi,
Just have a look at : http://waynesword.palomar.edu/arbimg10.htm#persistent 

So to make it short : My seedlings are from a common figtree so a persistent one so a "P+" tree .
My common figtree will generate "P" and "+" alleles so with apomixis the theoretical results is : "PP" and "++" seedlings ... ... ... Bouhouhouhou ... "PP" is lethal so I'm left with "++" only ... Bouhouhouhou ... Smyrna Seedlings only !!!
Tell me something is wrong and my seedlings will behave and be like their parent or a clone of the parent ... A common figtree ...  Well, ok, time will tell ... if I don't kill the seedlings before :) .
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Posted Reply with quote  #33 
Hi Jds,
You are right, it is quite possible that apomictic seedlings from a common fig will not produce trees with persists fruit. The second paper that Valdis posted seems to indicate they might, but the transition was not good enough to really understand what they were saying. It will be very interesting to see what your seedlings turn out to be.

What was the parent variety of your seedlings?
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