[NAFEX] Apple Seedling With 3 Cotelydons
Heron Breen
breen at fedcoseeds.com
Fri May 13 23:56:25 EDT 2005
Hi all,
I had a somewhat similar experience this winter sorting through some scion wood:
Most apple buds are alternate, with a close or opposite pair occurring here and
there. While looking at some English Golden Russet scion wood, I noticed a set of
three buds opposite each other on a one year growth stick. I have read in some very
old literature that this happens once and a while and quads are possible but more
rare. Akin to a lucky clover in apple bud formation.
Sounds like what Nick has is pretty neat! In reference to selecting for fruit
breeding, I have access to some real specific trait-guided selection technique
books for veggies. These contain somewhat of a holy grail for vegetable breeding ie
how to select crosses in five stages even before fruiting to maximize quality. The
info is broken down into species and then types within species. I wonder if such
books might exist for fruit tree breeding?
Anywho, I am going to attempt graft said 3-way opposite budded scion piece, just
to see if this is an indication of anything.
Nick, where are you in Maine?
Heron Breen
zone 4, Maine
On Fri May 13 2:18 , <leclair at verizon.net> sent:
>I have a small apple orchard in Maine and I decided to grow some new trees from
seed. Now, I'm not looking to grow great or exceptional apples; just ones good
enough for cider or cooking. If the trees don't make good apples, I'll just top
graft them with other varieties.
>
>Right now, I have a little over a hundred seedlings. Most of them look like
average ordinary antonovka rootstock seedlings with small average leaves. Some of
them have tiny skinny leaves that look like the ones on certain small crabapples.
>
>And one of the seedlings has three cotelydons. This one is almost twice as tall
as the average with much larger and broader leaves. The leaves also have much
larger teeth than the average leaf.
>
>The third cotelydon folded out from in between the other two "standard" cotelydons
to form a "Y" shape. The plant is at about the same stage as the rest of the
seedlings with about the same number of leaves, etc., except everything is larger.
>
>Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is my understanding that a standard apple tree has
34 chromosomes.
>
>Also, it is my understanding (based on memories of botany class way back in
school) that one of the cotelydons in a dicot has the genes from one of its
parents, while the other cotelydon has the genes from the other parent.
>
>So, if this is the case in this seedling as well as standard dicots, my seedling
should have 51 chromosomes, the same number that triploids have.
>
>So my roundabout question is, does three cotelydons make a triploid?
>
>Also, what are the odds of having good fruit from this tree?
>
>Any info would be helpful.
>
>Thanks,
>-Nick
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