Salinas Irene, Hueso Juan José, Força Baroni Danilo, Cuevas Julián
Department of Agronomy, University of Almería, ceiA3, Ctra. Sacramento s/n, La Cañada de San Urbano, 04120 Almería, Spain.
Cajamar Experimental Station 'Las Palmerillas', Paraje Las Palmerillas 25, El Ejido, 04710 Almería, Spain.
Plants (Basel). 2023 Mar 6;12(5):1189. doi: 10.3390/plants12051189.
Papaya ( L.) is one of the few fruit crops still propagated by seeds. However, its trioecious condition and the heterozygosity of the seedlings make urgent the development of reliable vegetative propagation procedures. In this experiment, we compared, in a greenhouse sited in Almería (Southeast Spain), the performance of plantlets of 'Alicia' papaya originated by seed, grafting, and micropropagation. Our results show that grafted papayas were more productive than seedlings papayas (7% and 4% for total and commercial yield), while in vitro micropropagated papayas were the least productive (28 and 5% less in total and commercial yield than grafted papayas, respectively). Root density and dry weight were both higher in grafted papayas, while the seasonal production of good quality, well-formed, flowers was also enhanced in grafted papayas. On the contrary, micropropagated 'Alicia' plants yielded less and lighter fruit despite these in vitro plants blooming earlier and setting fruit at desirable lower trunk height. Less tall and less thick plants and reduced production of good quality flowers might explain these negative results. In addition, the root system of micropropagated papaya was more superficial, while in grafted papayas, the root system was larger and had more fine roots. Our results suggest that the cost-benefit ratio does not favor the choice of micropropagated plants unless elite genotypes are used. On the contrary, our results encourage more research on grafting, including the search for suitable rootstocks for papaya.
番木瓜（Carica papaya L.）是少数仍通过种子繁殖的水果作物之一。然而，其三性花状态以及幼苗的杂合性使得开发可靠的营养繁殖程序变得紧迫。在本实验中，我们在位于西班牙东南部阿尔梅里亚的一个温室里，比较了通过种子、嫁接和微繁殖产生的‘阿利西亚’番木瓜组培苗的表现。我们的结果表明，嫁接番木瓜比实生苗番木瓜产量更高（总产量和商业产量分别高7%和4%），而离体微繁殖番木瓜产量最低（总产量和商业产量分别比嫁接番木瓜低28%和5%）。嫁接番木瓜的根密度和干重都更高，同时嫁接番木瓜优质、形态良好的花朵的季节性产量也有所提高。相反，尽管这些离体微繁殖植株开花较早且在理想的较低树干高度结果，但微繁殖的‘阿利西亚’植株果实产量较低且较轻。植株较矮、较细以及优质花朵产量减少可能解释了这些负面结果。此外，微繁殖番木瓜的根系较浅，而嫁接番木瓜的根系更大且细根更多。我们的结果表明，除非使用优良基因型，成本效益比并不利于选择微繁殖植株。相反，我们的结果鼓励对嫁接进行更多研究，包括寻找适合番木瓜的砧木。
