Thereafter, CM mass per fruit remained constant in gooseberry and jostaberry or increased at a lower rate in black currant.
CM mass per fruit increased rapidly up to 42, 41, and 49 days after full bloom (DAFB) in black currant, gooseberry, and jostaberry, respectively.
As previously observed, cuticle mass per fruit increased rapidly during Stage I, the rate of CM deposition reaching a maximum of approximately 117 µg per fruit per day about 24 DAFB in the present study.
We also observed a positive relationship between both seed mass and seeds-per-fruit and germination percentage, suggesting that more vigorous maternal genotypes partition more resources to offspring and produce many large seeds that also germinate to a higher percentage.
We used a binomial test to assess significant trends in fruit length, fruit diameter, fresh fruit mass, number of seeds per fruit, and seed mass associated with megafaunal dispersal.
Sensitivity analysis suggested that fruit set and resulting measures of productivity such as fruit mass and viable seeds per fruit were sensitive to parameterization of blueberry genotype or clone size and the amount of blueberry plant cover in a field.
For species included in our survey, data are available for fruit length (LENG), fruit width (cross diameter; DIAM), fresh fruit mass (FRFM), number of seeds per fruit (SEEDS), and individual seed mass (SEEDM).
Seeds were then pooled within a plant, and seeds-per-fruit, seed mass, seed area, and seed color were determined.
We detected QTL affecting seeds-per-fruit, seed mass, and fruit length on A1 in both the greenhouse and field environments.
The field-specific positive relationship between fruit total, seeds-per-fruit, and seed mass was consistent with FQTL1-1, which decreased the value for all three traits in the field and had a significant QTL × environment interaction effect for fruit total (Table 2).
QTL × environment effects were also significant for one QTL affecting each of days to bolting, fruit length, seeds-per-fruit, and seed mass, indicating that at least some of the genetic loci affecting each reproductive character, except seed color, were environment-specific or that functional differences between alleles at these QTL were manifested only in one environment.
