IDENTIFICATION OF MANDARIN X ORANGE HYBRIDS USING SIMPLE-SEQUENCE REPEAT MARKERS

Abstract

A study was conducted at Horticultural Research Institute, National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan during the year 2008-09 and 2009-10. The objective was to identify citrus hybrids using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. A total of 99 hybrid accessions from the crosses NARC 05-18 x Tarocco, NARC 05-17 x Sanguinello and Kinnow x Tarocco were tested using five SSR markers (TTA15, TTA27, TTA33, CCSM18 and CCSM147). Two SSR markers viz. TTA15 and CCSM147 were selected for hybrid identification. Twenty three hybrids from NARC 05-18 x Tarocco and five hybrids from NARC 05-17 x Sanguinello were identified using TTA15 whereas, 35 hybrids from Kinnow x Tarocco were identified using CCSM147 marker. The identified hybrids will be used in future citrus improvement programmes.