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Wheat Information Service
Number 74: 12-16 (1992)


Monosomic analysis of some quantitative characters in wheat, Triticum aestivum L. cv. "Chinese Spring".

Fauzia Iqbal and Ahsan A. Vahidy

Department of Genetics, University of Karachi, Karachi-75270, Pakaistan


Monosomics occur spontaneously and can be recognized by phenotypic observations and cytogenetic analysis. These can be used to determine gene linkage groups, especially in polyploid plants, for identification of genes on particular chromosomes and for transference of genes from one chromosome to the others. Monosomic series in hexaploid wheat, Triticum aestivum cv. "Chinese Spring" was developed by Sears (1954).

Leaf size has a positive effect on biomass and yield of plants. In wheat, the flag leaf makes important contribution of photosynthates. This contribution is greatest during the stage of grain filling. Days to heading in wheat depends upon many factors such as temperature, sowing dates, length of days and latitude. It is a complex character controlled by many genes. Spike length is controlled by the additive gene action of different minor genes. The genes affecting spike length may thus be located on many chromosomes.

In the present study, observations were taken to locate genes governing some quantitative characters to specific chromosomes in cv. "Chinese Spring" of common wheat through monosomic analysis. The characters studied were: days to heading, length and width of flag lesf and spike length.


Materials and Methods

The material for the present study comprised of 17 monosomic lines of common wheat c v. "Chinese Spring" which germinated and could be maintained at the Department of Genetics, University of Karachi. The seeds were kindly provided by Prof. E. R. Sears of the University of Columbia, Missouri, U. S. A.

Chromosomes of every seedling were counted by the general procedure of Jahan and Vahidy (1989). The seeds were first sown in Petri dishes and placed at 20oC. After 3 days the root tips were harvested for the cytological confirmation of the monosomics and the seeds were transplanted individually in small pots and kept at 20oC. Root tips were pretreated in a mixture of 0.05% colchicine, 0.025% 8 hydroxyquinoline, and 25 drops DMSO in 100 ml distilled water for 3 hours. They were then transferred into 1.8% acetoorcein. The root tips were heated to just boiling point on the spirit lamp and then squashed in 45% acetic acid. The slides were made permanent in liquid nitrogen and mounted in euparal. Cytologically confirmed seedlings were transferred into large pots and kept in the screen house under natural conditions.

Days to heading was considered as the average day the spike emerged from the boot leaf counting from the day of sowing. Observations were also recorded on the spike length, flag leaf length, and flag leaf width at maturity. Observations on disomics were included to make comparisons.

The means and standard errors of the four variables were calculated. Each monosomic line was compared with the disomic for each variable utilizing the statistical package SPSS/PC+. The contrast used in the analysis was "SIMPLE" as described by Norusis (1988). This allows the comparison of a particular variable, in this case, disomics with the rest, the monosomics. This comparison is non orthogonal in nature.

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