Most of the U.S. watermelon market is seedless (triploid) fruit. Because so much of the market depends on triploids, it is important to understand the effect ploidy plays on quality traits for this crop. Traits such as size and yield have been
exception of K. polifolia that was tetraploid (2 n = 4 x = 48). However, that study only examined material from one or two plants per species to determine ploidy, and in the case of K. angustifolia , only samples from North Carolina were obtained as
have not been analyzed for ploidy or genome size. Improved knowledge of chromosome numbers and ploidy levels of key species and cultivars would be a valuable resource for further breeding and improvement of Camellia . Analyses of other closely related
for persimmons with these two ploidy levels overlap in Kentucky ( Baldwin and Culp, 1941 ). Fig. 1. Reported tetraploid and hexaploid American persimmon populations based on the data of Baldwin and Culp (1941) and data in the current study. Most
. Polyploidy occurs in the genus Lonicera ( Ammal and Saunders, 1952 ; Solov’eva and Plekhanova, 2003 ). Ploidy levels and genome sizes play important roles in plant evolution ( Soltis et al., 2003 ). The 2C nuclear DNA amount of Lonicera varies 6-fold
Shiuchi and Fujita (2006 ). The only other species with multiple ploidy reports is S. hookeri , with a diploid count published ( Mehra and Bawa, 1969 ) in addition to the previously mentioned tetraploid count. The only cultivar with reported ploidy is S
( Adams and Wendel, 2005 ; Comai, 2005 ; Hegarty and Hiscock, 2008 ; Soltis and Burleigh, 2009 ). Knowledge of ploidy levels is important for plant breeders because it can influence fertility, crossability, segregation, and gene expression ( Chen and Ni
ploidy level of known germplasms is unclear. The mixed ploidy levels in the grass population could also be challenging to marker development and gene identification, ultimately influencing marker-assisted selection to improve desirable traits. In addition
are complex. Previous karyological studies have demonstrated the basic chromosome number for liriopogons to be x = 18 (rarely x = 17) with high levels of polyploidy in many species ( Table 1 ). Also, Fukai et al. (2008) investigated ploidy level
consideration in plant breeding because it can influence crossability, morphology, fertility, and gene expression ( Chen and Ni, 2006 ; Soltis et al., 2004 ). Sampling of ploidy levels has been very limited for Mahonia taxa. Mahonia aquifolium , M