Marcona¿s resynthesis

Conference paper of the VIII International Symposium on Almonds and Pistachios

‘Marcona’ is a traditional Spanish almond cultivar known for its round, plump and tasty kernel. It is used as snack and it is also valued in the confectionary industry to make nougat for a worldwide market. However, ‘Marcona’ is early blooming and self-incompatible which limits growing in zones with a high risk of spring frost and demands the use of pollinizers. Currently the Spanish almond industry is asking for a late blooming, self-fertile ‘Marcona’-like cultivar. Breeding a ‘Marcona’ type cultivar by conventional controlled crossing and phenotype selection in the field is challenging and it can take approximately 15 years. Alternatively, we propose the resynthesis of ‘Marcona’, a new method based on monitoring the whole genome using molecular markers at different breeding stages. In 2014, we made the cross ‘Marcona’ (S11S12) by ‘Mardia’ (S6Sf), which is carrying both the Sf allele for self-compatibility and the Lb allele for late blooming. We have selected two F1 individuals with these desirable traits using phenotypic and genotypic data. The main criteria to select them were (1) the minimum number of recombinations of the original ‘Marcona’ gamete, (2) presence of the self-fertile gene, (3) presence if the late flowering gene, and (4) the offspring was vigorous and productive. These F1 individuals are being clonally propagated 10 times to backcross to ‘Marcona’. The aim is to raise 1,000-2,000 seedlings and select approximately 100 individuals which meet our criteria. Most importantly the selections will carry the Sf and Lb alleles and be genetically similar to ‘Marcona’ which we will verify by using SNP markers that are currently under development.

Peer reviewed