‘Marcona’ and ‘Desmayo Largueta’ are the most widely cultivated almonds in Spain, representing around 27% of the total production and 34% of the entire almond growing surface. The excellent quality of their kernels makes them highly appreciated and demanded worldwide. However, due to their self-incompatibility, they should be grown along with cross-compatible cultivars, whose lower kernel quality often reduces the economic benefits of the plantation. In addition, although they are cross-compatible, are not good candidates to share the orchard since ‘Desmayo Largueta’ usually flowers earlier than ‘Marcona’. Therefore, to optimize orchard yield, genotypes with overlapping flowering times, cross-compatible with these cultivars and of similar fruit and ripening characteristics are desirable. In order to find suitable pollinators of these cultivars, five ‘Marcona’ and four ‘Desmayo Largueta’-type selections from “Instituto Técnico Agronómico Provincial (ITAP) de Albacete” (Spain) were characterized for flowering time and for self and cross-incompatibility. The results obtained showed that the nine ITAP selections were self-incompatible, and that three and one were promising candidates as pollinators of ‘Marcona’ and ‘Desmayo Largueta’, respectively. The S-haplotypes of two ITAP selections were characterized by cloning and sequencing their pistil S (S-RNase) and pollen S (SFB) genes. The results also showed that S f RNase does not have a mutated histidine in C2 region, and detected differences with other previously published sequences for S 23 RNase and SFB 23 allele. Moreover, the sequence for almond SFB 27 allele is reported here for the first time

This study was financially supported by the projects “Mejora Genética del Almendro” and “Mejora Genética de Material Autóctono de Almendro en Castilla La Mancha para Floración Tardía y Calidad”, funded by the Spanish “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación” and “Consejería de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain)”, respectively

Peer reviewed