| Giemsa C-banding karyotype identification of two Hordeum
vulgare cultivars and one Agropyron species grown in Greece A. GEORGIOU, He. COUCOLI, D. ROUPAKIAS* and S. KARATAGLIS Department of Botany, University of Thessaloniki, Greece Chromosome morphology of common barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) has for long been studied both by conventional cytological and cytogenetical methods, as well as by C-banding techniques. Undoubtedly, the Giemsa C-banding procedure applied by LINDE-LAURSEN firstly in "Emir" barley and subsequently in a great number of barley lines and varieties (LINDE-LAURSEN 1975, 1978 ; LINDE-LAURSEN et al. 1982), by VOSA (1976) in ten distinct cultivars and, more recently by FINCH & BENNETT (1982) in TULEEN 346 barley, provided new and more definite insights towards identifying the particular members of the genome. However, the problem has not as yet been thoroughly solved since the barley chromosome complement has always presented some ambiguous features due to : 1) The overlapping of chromosome parameters (relative length and arm ratio) manifested by the majority of genomic members (1 to 4), 2) subsequent chromosome rearrangements such as interchanges likely to occur in the numerous cultivars, and 3) the distribution pattern of heterochromatin resulting in C-banding polymorphism. That is why the normal, standard karyotype first designated by TJIO & HAGBER (1951) and substantially retained up to the present, has at times undergone partial revisions (TULEEN 1973 ; NODA & KASHA 1978, LINDE- LAURSEN 1978 ; COUCOLI et al. 1981) according to information obtained by using a broader spectrum of materials and new modifications of techniques. This study was undertaken to clarify the forementioned problems. Materials and Methods The two-rowed barley varieties used, namely CARINA and GEORGIA (GEORGIE) were introduced from West Germany (1972) and England (1974) respectively. CARINA's parental origin is Union x (WV x Viola) and GEORGIA's Vada x Zephyr. Both varieties have been successfully cultivated in Greece for more than ten years. The seed material was kindly provided by the Institute of Cereals (Thessaloniki, Greece). Agropyron striatulum material was collected from littoral Greek biotopes and voucher specimens are being retained at our Depart ment of Botany (MOUSTAKAS & COUCOLI 1982). Microscopic C-banding slides were prepared and the establishment of the corresponding karyotypes was made on mitotic metaphase cells of root-tips. The C-banding technique used was the one described by LINDE-LAURSEN (1975). In our studies we used mainly Leishman stain and partially Giemsa stain with some other minor modifications. The technique used for Agropyron was the one described by GUSTAFSON et al. (1976). Fifteen complete metaphases from ten roots in average were studied in all three materials. C-banding positions were measured from photographs at least in 5 chromosomes per member-type and the mean positions were inserted on the corresponding idiograms as they were established from Feulgen preparations in GEORGIA barley (COUCOLI et al. 1980) and in Agropyron striatulum (MOUSTAKAS & COUCOLI 1982). |
| *Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, University of Thessaloniki, Greece |
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