| Effect of different plasmons on some metric traits
in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum, L.) J.S. SINDHU Crop Science Department, University ot Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Sask., Canada The cytoplasms of various Triticum and Aegilops species have been successfully used to induce cyto-male sterility in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum, L.). This has led to the production of completely male sterile analogues of wheat which may be used as female parents in hybrid seed production. Besides male sterility, some side effects of these s- cytoplasms on wheat plants are often observed and these may be attributed to cytoplasmic genes. This study was undertaken to study such effects on some metric traits in male sterile analogues of common wheat having various cytoplasms. Materials and Methods The material for this study comprised 10 spring wheat cultivars including Sonalika, Sharbatai Sonara, Lerma Rojo, Hira, Norteno, N.P. 809, Kalyan Sona, K. 68, C. 306 and C. 591, and three male sterile cytoplasm sources, viz. Triticum timopheevi, Aegilops ovata and Ae. caudata. The s-cytoplasm sources were the lines having T. aestivum genome in the alien cytoplasm. These were used as female parents and were crossed with all the accessions of bread wheat. Subsequently five backcross doses to the recurrent parent, bread wheat in the present case, led to the production of male sterile analogues of wheat with three different cytoplasmic background. The effects of these s-cytoplasms were recorded on male sterile wheat analogues for five morphological attributes, viz., days to flower, plant height in cm., number of internodes per plant, effective tillers per plant and spike length in cm. Observations were recorded on 30 competitive plants spaced 30 cm between and 15 cm within the rows. Spike length, plant height and number of internodes were measured on the main tiller only. Results and Discussion The effect of different s-cytoplasms on the 10 bread wheat cultivars for five morphological traits has been presented in Table 1. It is evident that Ae. ovata and Ae. caudata cytoplasms, though confer great luxuriance in terms of increased plant height and profuse tillering, cause prolonged flower initiation and delayed maturity which is not a desirable attribute from argonomic view point. |
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