Marker-assisted selection of maintainer lines within an onion tropical population

The traditional onion (Allium cepa) hybrid production requires the development of maintainer and male sterile lines and also a pollinator line with good specific combination ability. We report the identification of maintainer and male-sterile onion lines within the Brazilian 'Baia Periforme' derived population, 'Alfa São Francisco', associating random field pairing of male-fertile plants with selected male-sterile plants and PCR-based marker system monitoring S, T and N-cytoplasms. Male-sterile plants produced flowers with light green anthers which were easily detected in the field. A frequency of 2.0% of male-sterile plants was estimated in the 'Alfa São Francisco' sampled population. Male-sterile plants produced the 5'cob-marker 180-bp and the orfA501-marker 473-bp fragments, suggesting the T-cytoplasm type, while the maintainer line produced only the 5'cob-marker 180-bp. These identified lines will be important to develop tropical onion hybrids well-adapted to Brazilian low latitudes and to future comparative studies with other onion cytoplasmic genic male sterility systems.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Santos,Carlos Antonio Fernandes, Leite,Daniela Lopes, Oliveira,Valter Rodrigues, Rodrigues,Marciene Amorim
Format:	Digital revista
Language:	English
Published:	Escola Superior de Agricultura "Luiz de Queiroz" 2010
Online Access:	http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-90162010000200015
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