Proceedings of the S-Allele workshop at the 2001 International Cherry Symposium

Matthews and Dow (1969) named six sweet cherry S-alleles and organized sweet cherry cultivars into 13 compatibility groups and a Group 0 with universal pollen donors. With the subsequent determination that the stylar product of the S-locus is a ribonuclease (RNase) and the resulting ability to determine genotype by S-RNases, it is now possible to re-visit the grouping of Matthews and Dow (1969). S-RNase protein and DNA genotyping has increased the number of published sweet cherry S-alleles to 13 and assigned S-alleles to 22 compatibility groups. The objectives of the S-Allele Workshop at the 2001 International Cherry Symposium were to bring together the principal investigators working on S-allele genotyping and grouping to develop a standard nomenclature, and discuss issues relevant to the assignment of new S-allele numbers and the increasing use of self-compatible mutants. The major outcomes of this Workshop are tables presenting the S-allele genotypes for 176 self-incompatible and 17 self-compatible sweet cherry cultivars from work published since 1996.