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Wheat Information Service
Number 73: 15-18 (1991)

Germination, pollen fertility and crossability between triticale and wheat and reversion patterns in early segregating generations

V. K. Khanna

Department of Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture, Pantnagar-263145, India


Larger or heavier seeds give rise to more vigorous plants and better yields, particularly when equal number of seeds per unit area are planted (Bremner et al 1963; Clark and Peck 1968). However, with the increasing age of plants the superiority of plants from larger seeds decreases and is gradually lost in the long duration crops and perennial plants (Randhawa 1970). Dhillon et al (1976) reported that small seeds showed the highest and the large seeds the lowest emergence capacity in triticale, maize, barley and soybean. A study of germination, pollen sterility and crossability between wheat and triticale and reversion of early segregating generations to the parental types is reported here.


Materials and Methods

The experimental material used in the present study comprised of five strains of hexaploid triticale namely UPT 75233, UPT 7681, UPT 78268, UPT 79339 and UPT 79347 and five varieties of hexaploid wheat namely Sonalika, UP 262, UP 2003, WL 1804 and WL 2087. B1t (F1 x triticale), B1w (F1 x wheat) and F2 generations were raised to study the reversion to the parental types. On the basis of the morphological features, plants were classified as having resemblance to either of the parent in each cross.


Results and Discussion

In the present study it was observed that the small seeds showed the highest and the large seeds the lowest emergence capacity (Table 1), except in the case of Sonalika. Similar results were obtained by Dhillon et al (1976) in triticale, maize, barley and soybean.

Pollen sterility in triticales (Table 1) ranged from 5.9 to 15.8 per cent whereas it was 3.7 to 6.2 per cent in wheats. Pollen sterility may be due to poor growth of the plant, chlorophyll deficiency, chromosomal aberrations etc. According to Chauhan (1976) tapetum plays a definite role in the development of microspores.

When triticale was used as the female parent in triticale x wheat crosses, seed set was low, whereas the germination was good (Table 2). On the contrary, when wheat was used as the female parent, seed set was good but germination was nil. Similar results were reported by Jouve et al (1984). This may be attributed to the high frequency of embryo-less kernels (Behl et al 1981). Singh and Khanna (1983) reported that poor crossability in triticale x wheat crosses was due to pollen germination and -retardation and inhibition of the growth of the pollen tubes in the pistils at the base of the style. Pollen fertility of the F1 ranged from 42.3 to 64.7 per cent (Table 2).

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