| The addition o f an Agropyron genome to the
common wheat variety Chinese Spring B. C. JENKINS Division of Plant Science, University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada In 1938 Professor L. H. Shebeski, now head of the Division of Plant Science, University of Manitoba, pollinated plants of Chinese Spring wheat with pollen from Agropyron elongatum (Host) Beauv., 2n=70. During the following seasoh plants of Chinese Spring were pollinated with the pollen from F1's of the cross mentioned above. There followed a series of open and self pollinations among the backcrossed derivatives and eventually highly self fertile lines were established which were wheat-like in appearance but perennial in growth habit, particularly when grown in the greenhouse. In 1949 the writer obtained four of these lines, three of which were designated P. W. 266, 276 and 292 marked F9 from the cross Chinese x (Chinese x Agropyron elongatum). A fourth line designated P. W. 327 was in F10 of the same cross. These four lines together with a fifth designated P. W. 588-2 have been grown almost every year and are thus at least in F15 at the time of writing. Professor Shebeski has made a world wide distribution of this material and it is highly probable that many of the readers will already have descendants of this cross. While there is still some slight chromosome irregularity which accounts for the variation between plants despite the advanced generation, most plants have a somatic chromosome number of 56. In crosses with common wheat, the most frequent chromosome configuration is 21 bivalents and 7 univalents. This would indicate that a genome from Agropyron has been added to wheat. These 56 chromosome plants are similar to those obtained by Sears in a different way1) with the exception that he added the Haynaldia villosa genome instead of a genome from Agropyron. Attempts are now being made to add the Agropyron chromosomes singly to the common wheat varieties Chinese Spring and Kharkov with the view to eventually developing substitution lines involving the more desirable Agropyron chromosomes. (Received April 18, 1957) |
| 1) Sears, E. R. 1953. Addition of the genome of Hayunaldia villosa to Triticum aestivum. Am. J. Botany 40: 168-173. |