Patent ID: 9732391
Date: 2017-08-15
CPC Classifications: A01H,C12N,C12Q

Claim:
1. F1 hybrid leaf chicory plants or parts or derivatives thereof, wherein the F1 hybrid plants or parts or derivatives thereof are each heterozygous for a recessive (ms) allele for which a male sterile leaf chicory plant is homozygous, and wherein said F1 hybrid is produced by crossing said male sterile leaf chicory plant with a male fertile leaf chicory plant, wherein the male sterile leaf chicory plant comprises a male sterile mutant of 1) shows a cytological phenotype characterized by shapeless, small and shrunken microspores in dehiscent anthers as compared to wild-type leaf chicory plants, wherein said shrunken microspores arrest their development at the uninucleate stage, collapsing before their release from the tetrads; and 2) wherein said male sterile mutant leaf chicory plants and parts and derivatives thereof each comprises a sterility trait which is controlled by a nuclear recessive mutation (ms) conferred by a single gene linked 5.8 cM apart to a polymorphic molecular marker locus finely mapped on linkage group 4, said molecular marker locus comprising a microsatellite or simple sequence repeat (TC)n target DNA region comprising a variable number (n) of thymine-cytosine (TC) repeats in SEQ ID NOs: 1 or 2, wherein the male sterile leaf chicory plants are homozygous for the recessive (ms) allele; wherein said male sterile mutant is selected by genotyping the leaf chicory plants or parts or derivatives thereof by analysing their DNA for the simple sequence repeat (TC)n in SEQ ID NO:1 or SEQ ID NO:2, and comparing genotypes of leaf chicory plants to a male sterile genotype of reference (msms) for the (TC)n target DNA region, said male sterile mutant being selected due to having both marker alleles comprising said simple sequence repeat (TC)n in SEQ ID NOs: 1 or 2; where n of (TC)n is 27 or 28.