(go to KOMUGI Home) (go to WIS List) (go to NO.76 Contents)


In the past few years studies on the composition of HMW glutenin subunits of the Chinese wheats and its relation to bread baking quality have been made by several institutes, among them. Hebei Agric. University's work deserves mention. The HMW glutenin subunits composition of 5071 common wheats (comprising 922 landraces, 2292 breeding lines and 1818 exogenous materials) were determined by SDS-PAGE and the corresponding Zeleny sedimentation value and other related quality indices were scored in a period of three years. They found that: (1) The main subunits variations in the three loci of homeologous chromosome 1 were: for Glu-A1 --- Null,1,2*; for Glu-B1 --- 7+8, 7+9, 6+8, 7, 20, 21, 22, 17+18, 14+15, 13+16, 13+19; for Glu-D1 --- 2+12, 3+12, 4+12, 5+10. Some rare or new allelic variations such as 2+10, 2.2+12, 6+9, etc. were also found. (2) The main subunits in the three loci were listed in Table 3. The frequencies of good quality subunit 5+10 in Chinese landraces and improved varieties or lines were 3.7% and 15.7%, respectively. (3) The main subunit combinations in the three loci for landrces were Null, 7+8, 2+12, with a frequency of 74.8%; for improved vareities were Null, 7+8, 2+12 (18.8%); Null, 7+9, 2+12 (16.7%); and for foreign varieties were Null, 7+9, 5+10 (14.0%); Null, 7+9, 4+12 (10.5%); Null, 7+8, 5+10 (7.5%), respectively. (4) Multiple regression analysis between glutenin subunits determined and their corresponding 12 quality indices revealed that 5+10 gave the best performance, and 2* ranked next. As judged from the 3 main bread baking quality indices, namely sedimentation value, valorimeter value and bread score, in a subset data from 126 varieties, the magnitute of effect for each subunit in Glu-A1 was in the order of 2* >l>Null; in Glu-D1 was 5+10>4+12>2+12; and in Glu-B1 was 7=20>7+8>22>7+9. (5) A new Glu-1 quality score system was suggested as follows (Mao 1992, to be published):

Score
Glu-A1
Glu-B1
Glu-D1

5

5+10

4
2*

3

7,20

2
1
7+8
4+12

1
Null
22
2+12

0

7+9


Wheat breeders in China have confronted for many years two problems, namely, poor or not so diversified genetic backgrounds and lack of superior parental materials. Henceforth they are getting more and more interests in population improvement and germplasm development.


Population improvement

There has been a small nation-wide network in this area aiming at the improvement for either single breeding objective or multiple, comprehensive breeding objectives by using Taigu dominant male sterile gene-, Ms2. In addition to the recurrent selections for scab resistance mentioned before, many breeders have paid considerable attention to the improvement of salt tolerance and yield performance as well. Shanxi AAS in a study of half-sib selection vs phenotypic selection for 4 cycles indicated that the former gave a higher genetic gain than the latter (
Table 4) (Wang et al 1991). Recently Institute of Crop Breeding and Cultivation, CAAS, has been successful in developing a genetic material called Aibai (dwarf dominant male sterile) which linked Ms2 with Rht10 tightly on the sams chromosome 4DS with 0.18 crossing-over unit. This provides a genetic marker for male sterility. The progeny of Aibai always segregates into one tall, male fertile: one dwarf, male sterile and the plant stature of them is quite different. Such a material will facilitate the use of Ms2 gene because it can shift the time of recognition for male steriles from the normal to as early as shooting stage which will save much time and labor in roguing off the male fertiles. The dwarf male steriles serve readily as good reciever of any pollens available and can avoid the defect that ordinary Ms2 carriers used to recieve pollens more frequently from the plants taller than themselves and make the reduction of plant stature very difficult.

<--Back |-->Next

(go to KOMUGI Home) (go to WIS List) (go to NO.76 Contents)