North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Philip Stewart <philstewart24@yahoo.com>]

Actually, sloes (Prunus spinosa) are tetraploid. There
are a number of other tetraploid Prunus as well (such
as sour cherries, and a number of wild plums). The
theory at one point anyway was that Prunus domestica
was a hybrid of P. spinosa and P. cerasifera.

On crossing hexaploid plums with diploid ones: on the
surface it would seem that this would work well,
yielding tetraploid offspring. The cross probably
could be made (and I'll be it has been). The problem
is getting fertile offspring. There are probably two
distinct genome types in P. domestica, and not only do
you have to get a hybrid that'll grow, you have to get
one that can sort out the pairing of at least three
different types of chromosomes, which is monumentally
complex phenomenon. It probably could be done, though,
with the right choice of diploid species and lots and
lots of patience to wade through unfruitful hybrids.

There is evidence of hybridization between P.
domestica and other Prunus, though not all are
fertile. Successful hybrids have occurred from
crossing P. domestica and peach (a diploid), and the
European Ramasin plums have been suggested to be
hybirds of P. domestica and P. insititia (a
tetraploid), Successful hybrids have been reported
with apricot (a diploid) as well.

Donna said:
"On the fruit front, I think that sloes also are
hexaploid, like 
domestica.  I have often wondered to myself if there
wasn't some way to 
do a 
cross to get some of the late bloming genes of the
European plums 
transferred into diploid plums.  They made crosses
between tetraploid 
and 
diploid roses, and though the results were mostly
sterile they did 
eventually get some fertility and lines of
tetraploids.  The thing is, 
that 
with 3 copies from a European plum and one copy from a
diploid plum, 
you'd 
get a tetraploid plant, which seems to be fine for
other species in the 
rose 
family..... but I never heard of any tetraploid
species or varieties in 
Prunus.  Have you?"


 
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