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What are candits? Study of a date palm landrace in Spain belonging to the western cluster of Phoenix dactylifera L.

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Abstract

The term candit (Valencian) or candío (Spanish) collectively refers to a specific group of date palms predominant among those presently grown in groves along the coast of southeastern Spain. The fruits borne are small, fleshy and, usually, ripen gradually within each infructescence while still on the tree; they are sweet and highly appreciated as a fresh fruit. Their status as a landrace has been assayed through the use of SSR markers. A few instances of vegetative propagation were detected, conserved both at IVIA (Valencian Institute of Agrarian Research) and in commercial plantations, which could be further developed as commercial cultivars; however, most palms bearing candit dates are genetically heterogeneous, consistent with the traditional seed propagation. Candit, thus, refers mostly to characteristics of date fruits rather than to a particular genotype and can be collectively considered a landrace. Candits are collectively part of the western cluster of Phoenix dactylifera L.

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Abbreviations

AFLP:

Amplified fragment length polymorphism

NPGC:

National Palm Germplasm Collection

PCoA:

Principal coordinates analysis

SRAP:

Sequence-related amplified polymorphism

SSR:

Simple sequence repeat

UPGMA:

Unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean

y.o.:

Years old

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Francisco Serrano Orts for his valuable information about traditional knowledge of candits. This work has been supported by INIA-MINECO projects RF2007-00010-C03, RF2010-00006-C02 and RFP2013-00004–00-00 (European Regional Development Fund 2007–2020); RFP2017-00004–00-00.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Biología Vegetal (Botánica), Fac. Biología, Universidad de Murcia, 30100, Murcia, Spain

    Encarna Carreño, Diego Rivera & Francisco Alcaraz

  2. Dept. Biología Aplicada, EPSO, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche, Ctra. Beniel Km, 3.2, 03312, Orihuela, Alicante, Spain

    Concepción Obón

  3. Cincinnati, USA

    Dennis Johnson

  4. Estación Experimental Agraria de Elche, Ctra. de Dolores Km.1, 03290, Elche, Alicante, Spain

    Julián Bartual

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  1. Encarna Carreño
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Field work was carried out by DR, CO, FJA and JB. Laboratory work and analysis was performed by EC. The first draft of the manuscript was written by EC and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Diego Rivera.

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We obtained informed consent from Mr. Francisco Serrano concerning “candits”.

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Carreño, E., Rivera, D., Obón, C. et al. What are candits? Study of a date palm landrace in Spain belonging to the western cluster of Phoenix dactylifera L.. Genet Resour Crop Evol 68, 135–149 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10722-020-00973-w

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