New Cultivars Derived from Crosses between Commercial Cultivar and a Wild Population of Papaya Rescued at Its Center of Origin

In order to generate new varieties, this study focused on the rescue and use of landraces and wild Carica papaya L. populations located at southern Yucatan, Mexico, to cross them with a commercial papaya cultivar (Maradol). In the cross L7 × M22, The native parent line L7 was used as the receiver parent while the commercial Maradol (M22) was used as the donor parent, seeking to generate genotypes with improved productivity and reduced plant height. Cluster analysis and principal components analysis grouped the genotypes firstly into those individuals with few fruits and those with many fruits and secondly into individuals with high and low plant height. Selected genotypes H13B, H17B, H19B, H68B, and H71B meet the desirable characteristics, such as reduced plant height (PH) and intermediate number of fruits per plant (NFP). These materials can be used now to produce new crosses to continue with the ongoing breeding program at CICY, seeking new varieties with higher productivity and adequate plant height, and also these genotypes will be preserved and integrated in the germplasm bank in situ and in vitro for further genetic work and possible exchange with other germplasm collections worldwide.