Morphogenetic characterization of seeded and seedless varieties of Kinnow Mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco)

Kinnow (Citrus reticulata Blanco) mandarin is a superior fruit crop in Pakistan; however, it is characterized by high number of seeds which is disliked by consumers and the processing industry. The objective of this work was to document the morphological and genetic differences in selected seeded and seedless Kinnow strains from two different locations i.e., Citrus Research Institute Sargodha and University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. The morphological characters suggested variations in external and internal characters of seeded and seedless fruits such as growth habit, fruit shape and texture. Likewise chemical composition of seedless fruit was different than seeded including TSS and Ascorbic acid. Whereas PCA analysis suggested fruit weight, peel weight, non-reducing sugars and fruit diameter were largely contributing for the variations among the seeded and seedless strains of Faisalabad and Sargodha regions. The genetic characterization was carried out using Random Amplification of Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) markers. Two unique fragments of sizes 1000 bp each were detected by RAPD primers GL A-2 and GL C-19 in seedless strains which can be used as a fingerprint for the identification of seedless plants. The results obtained from SSR analysis showed 81.62% of overall polymorphism in seeded and seedless strains of two locations. This variation will help to develop molecular markers for seedless Kinnow strains.