EXPRESSION OF SELF-INCOMPATIBILITY IN Coffea GENOTYPES
canephora CULTIVATED IN THE WESTERN AMAZON
gametophytic self-incompatibility; Conilon; Robusta.
The objective of this work is to characterize the expression of gametophytic self-incompatibility in a
breeding population of the coffee tree Coffea canephora, providing subsidies for the management of this
characteristic and development of new cultivars. For that, 550 pollinations were carried out
in vitro between 62 mother plants of the botanical varieties Conilon (27) and Robusta (35). genotypes
previously known compatibility groups I, II and III were initially used as
test plants. 32 genotypes compatible with all testers were identified
previously known, indicating the existence of new compatibility groups. from these
results, hybridizations were performed in a complete diallel design with crosses
reciprocal tests to characterize test plants of the new compatibility groups. based on
compatibility response with the test plants, the genotypes were grouped into six groups,
identified as follows: 11 genotypes in group I (17.74%), 13 genotypes in group II (29.07%), 6
genotypes (9.68%) in group III, 9 genotypes (14.52%) in group IV, 8 genotypes (12.90%) in group
V and 15 genotypes (24.19%) in group VI. Comparison of the compatibility groups with the
genetic diversity evaluated in the field showed that the Conilon genotypes were grouped in
only one of the quadrants of the dispersion, estimated from the first two principal components.
The three quadrants with the highest number of Robusta genotypes showed the highest frequency of plants
of compatibility group VI (39, 48 and 23%) while in the quadrant with the highest occurrence of
Conilon genotypes, compatibility group II is the most frequent (31%). Until obtaining these
results, evaluations of Brazilian populations indicated the existence of only three alleles and three
compatibility groups. The identification of new compatibility groups provides subsidies
for new management practices seeking to increase pollination efficiency, by favoring
of fully compatible crosses.