The 2012 ASHS Annual Conference

White flower color is controlled by a recessive allele w in peach. To map the W locus, open pollinated seed were collected from two different F₁ hybrids. The first hybrid was an F₁ between ‘White English’ ww (white flower) and ‘UFSun’ WW (pink flower). The second a hybrid was an F₁ between ‘Brooks’ ww (white flower) and ‘UFBeauty’ WW (pink flower).  Open pollinated seed were collected from both F₁ hybrids to produce a segregating F₂ population. ‘Brooks’ × ‘UFBeauty’ and ‘White English’ x ‘UFSun’ F₂ populations consisted of 37 and 110 individuals, respectively.  The F₂ populations did not deviate significantly from a 3:1 pink to white phenotypic segregation ratio (c² ≤ 0.01). White flower phenotypes were identified to be homozygous recessive, as previously described. Bulked samples of white and pink flower phenotypes from ‘White English’ × ‘UFSun’ F₂ population were used to identify the genomic region linked with white flower ww locus using a total of 41 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. A linkage map was created with the SSR markers closely linked with white flower ww in peach and the locus placed on the Prunus reference genome map.