Genetic dissection of fruit maturity date in apricot (P. armeniaca L.) through a Single Primer Enrichment Technology (SPET) approach

A total of 32,492 polymorphic sites were genotyped in 128 accessions (including 8,188 accessory non-target SNPs) with extremely low levels of missing data and a significant correlation of allelic frequencies compared to whole-genome sequencing data used for array design. Their performance was further validated by estimating genotyping errors in two biparental progenies, resulting in an overall 1.8% rate. SPET genotyping data were used to infer population structure in the panel and to dissect the architecture of fruit maturity date (MD), a quantitative reproductive phenological trait of great agronomical interest in apricot species.Besides the utility for marker assisted selection and for paving the way to in-depth studies to clarify the molecular bases of MD trait variation in apricot, the results provide an overview of the performance and reliability of SPET for fruit tree genetics.