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Wheat Information
Service
Number 73: 19-24 (1991)
Relationship
of lodging resistance and yield to anatomical characters of stem in
wheat, triticale and rye
V. K. Khanna
Department of Plant Breeding, G. B. Pant Agrivarsity, Pantnagar,
India
When wheat (genus Triticum) and rye (genus Secale) are
artificially crossed, the product is an intergeneric hybrid that has
characteristics of both parents. The hybrid is called triticale. The
early triticales were developed from tall, weakstrawed parents and
the sunlight conditions of the lower latitudes encouraged them to
grow even taller and weaker. Especially under the stimuli of
irrigation and fertilization, intended to exploit their full yield
potential, the tall triticales tended to lodge or fall over, severely
depressing yield. Lodging has attracted attention due to severity of
damage and consequent losses in yield and grain quality. For
triticales to be competitive with wheat at the higher level of
production, it was essential to improve its lodging resistance. This
has been accomplished to quite an extent by improving straw strength,
decreasing plant height or both. Triticale may prove to be an
important crop for those areas which are marginal for wheat
cultivation, e.g., the hills, where it yields about 20% more than
wheat. Present study deals with the correlation of vascular bundles
and thickness of different stem layers with yield and lodging
resistance in triticale, wheat and rye.
Materials and Methods
The study was carried out on seven wheat, seven triticale and
four ryes selected on the basis of differences in height and lodging
susceptibility. A randomized block design with three replications was
used. Stem sections were collected one month after the heading, i.e.,
at approximately half maturity of the grain. The material was
preserved in FAA (5 ml formaldehyde + 5 ml glacial acetic acid + 90
ml of 70% ethyl alcohol). The sample was collected from the main
tiller by taking five plants in each replication and the internodes
were numbered from the base towards the top. Studies were done on
free hand cut sections. For counting the number of vascular bundles
whole sections were used. The sections were stained with
Safranin-fast green (Johansen 1940). The size of epidermal cells,
chlorenchyma and sclerenchyma cells was measured with a calibrated
ocular micrometer. The measurements were taken on 10 randomly
selected cells in each slide. The readings were converted to microns
and the average values were calculated.
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