Mitigation of seed dormancy and microsatellite analysis of hybrid population of Garden roses (Rosa hybrida).

• Rosa hybrida seed dormancy significantly hinders the germination percentage. • Genotypic variations, agroclimatic and edaphic factors influenced the seed setting and germination percentage. • Cold stratification with GA 3 proved efficient in minimizing the seed dormancy and more germination percentage was obtained. • In conventional breeding selected parents, microsatellite markers proved convenient for selection of variant hybrid seedlings. • Microsatellite markers can easily select genetically different desirable hybrids at early growth stage. Roses have complex mode of inheritance due to inter and intra-variant ploidy level in both varieties and species, which occurred as result of inbreeding depression. Improvement in ornamental crops is blooming trend for maximizing production and quality produce for market acceptability. The main objective of this work was to improve rose seed germination that resulted from successful crosses to develop new hybrid lines and interrogated by using microsatellite 'Simple Sequence Repeat Marker's (SSRs). Four different seed treatments were applied to evaluate early and maximum seed germination. The resulted seedlings were evaluated for their number of days taken to germination, seedling root length and seedling length at the time of transplantation. The means data were calculated by using standard ANOVA technique with probability level 5%. The simple sequence repeat markers were applied to illustrate the inherited diversity within hybrid population, relevant to their parents. The population was differentiated by linkage group obtained in constructed maps. In this study, NaOCl rinsing and GA 3 application on cold scarified seed has significantly improved germination percentage. The early seedling germination (29.37 days) was observed in variety Bora bora crosses. The maximum root length (2.17 cm) was observed in Gruss-an-teplitz cross. These findings depicted that seed treatments favor the growth with disinfectants. Therefore, use of growth promoter increased the success rate as compared to control treatment. Furthermore, developed hybrids progenies resulted from successful crosses analyzed for morphological extent to demonstrate the characters of hybrids plants. The possible use of marker in developed population of hybrid roses was to determine the presence or absence of inherited locus of the parents, associated with morphological characters in developed progeny. Marker assisted study helpful for the selection of newly developed progeny from locally adapted varieties for future improvement in desired characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]