Study On The Odd-allotetraploid Lily ’Honesty’ In Lilium Introgression Breeding

Lily is one of the most important flower cultivars whose productivity and sales have been growing up rapidly since the1990s, and the development of its technology of breeding and propagation is the main driving force. But nowadays, the breeding research is highly concentrated in the developed countries such as Netherlands, America and Japan. We have to focus more on lily breeding to get rid of the situation that most of our lily bulbs are imported from other countries.Based on the research on the potential of allotriploid lilies in breeding, allotriploid lilies were male sterile, but they can still used as female parent to cross with suitable male parents. To make a thorough inquiry into the significance of the odd-allotetraploid’Honesty’in lily breeding, we crossed it with some diploid and tetraploid Asiatic lilies. The results were as follows.1. Three diploid Asiatic lilies ’Eleganze’,’4you’ and ’Renoir’ were used as male parent to cross with the allotetraploid ’Honesty’. None hybrid fruits were obtained from the crosses of ’4you’ or ’Renoir’, while all of the ten flowers of the cross between ’Eleganze’ and ’Honesty’ born hybrid fruits, among which six aborted and ten embryo sacs were obtained the four developmental fruits, but none seedlings were obtained after the embryo rescue treatment.2.A11the crosses between the four tetraploid Asiatic lilies Deroit’,’Brunello’’Sarina’ and ’Tresor’ with ’Honesty’ were successful.374seedlings were obtained, which indicated allotetraploid lily can be used as female parent in hybdridazation, and it showed strong affinity with tetraploid Asiatic lilies.3. The GISH analysis of ’Honesty’ showed that ’Honesty’ was a real tetraploid cultivar, which had48chromosomes:12Longiflorum chromosomes,36Asiatic chromosomes and none recombinant chromosomes.4. The GISH analysis of the hybrids of the cross between’Brunello’and ’Honesty’ showed that the chromosome numbers of the seedlings varied from42to90, with0-9Longiflorum chromosomes,42-90Asiatic chromosomes.19of the20seedlings have recombinant chromosomes. The results above indicated that allotetraploid usually produced aneuploid gametes, and most gametes had recombinant chromosomes. The recombination between genes and variation of the number of chromosomes may cause more differences of phenotype, and therefore improve their probability to be selected.To sum up, odd-allotetraploid lily ’Honesty’ can be used as female to cross with appropriate male lilies; the aneuploid gametes produced and recombinant chromosomes showed high potential in introgression breeding.