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Wheat Information Service
Number 84: 1-6 (1997)
Research article

Study on utilization of the dominant male sterile triticale in breeding sterile triticale in breeding

Yuanshu Sun and Chongyi Wang

Institute of Crop Breeding and Cultivation, CAAS, Beijing 100081, China


Summary

This paper describes the fertile segregating progenies derived from crosses and back crosses between male sterile triticale lines and hexaploid and octoploid triticale and the populations established for rotational selection. Gene recombinations took place extensively for breaking down adverse gene linkages and improvement of the frequency of favorable genes, seed plumpness, and the synthesis of good characters.

Key words: triticale, male-sterile line, rotational selection


Introduction

Triticale, first grown in China in the 1970's, has shown significant potential in disease resistance, stress tolerance, nutritional quality and yield. However, it has not been used extensively because of poor traits such as plant height, late maturity, low seed test weight and low flour yield due to shrivelled seed. Triticale was grown on approximately 0.4 million mu (one hectare is equal to 15 mu) in the early 1980's in China. However, the sown area later decreased because of the problems mentioned above. Shrivelled seed and the adverse characters of triticale are controlled by multiple factors and are linked with adverse genes; thus the problems cannot be resolved with conventional breeding methods (Wang and Sun 1986). We have done several thousands cross combinations and long term selections without success. The dominant male sterile materials are good tools for rotational selection of triticale. They can be used in the short term for gene recombination and breaking down of adverse gene linkage, but they can also improve the frequency of good genes and the good traits of the dispersed multiple genes can be combined (Liu and Deng 1986; Ji and Deng 1986; Darvey 1986). Therefore, it is an effective method for improving the plumpness of seed and adverse characters of triticale.


Materials and methods

The establishment of triticale male sterile lines
In 1982, crosses were made between male sterile Chinese Spring Ms2, and the rye AR132. The Ms2 dominant male sterile gene was transferred into octoploid triticale through hybrid' chromosome doubling in the second year. Triticale sterile lines with different characters ha been bred through crossing with hexaploid triticale OH1, WOH45, WOH63 and octoploid triticale H1162, H2645, H8301 in 1983-1987.

Group combination
The triticale sterile lines were divided into groups according to breeding objectives such as maturity period, plant height, grain quality, and as food or feed. Ten to 15 lines were selected from each group for inter crossing; a) semi-diallel crosses: fifteen lines for each group and 105 single crosses. were made according to the formula n(n-1)/2; b) random crosses: from 1988, sterile plants were interplanted for natural random crosses. Thus the genes in the CO population can be full: combined.

Rotational selection
According to the breeding objectives for each group, 200-500 sterile and fertile plants were selected among CO population and sterile plants were mixed and entered into the C1 (Fig.1). The fertile plants whose main traits exceeded the average of the population in female parent row were selected and mixed as male plants of C1 after testing. Selection for C2 was carried out according to the selective method for C1. Thus hybridization and selection can be carried out Bonce at each cycle. Selection concentrated on the female gamete of fertile plants. Selection aimed to improve characters such as plant height, bushiness, winter hardiness, disease resistance, date of heading, etc. It should be carried out before anthesis in order to reduce the diffusing of adverse genes among the population. The results of selection were: a) comparison between each cycle, and b) comparison with conventional selection. The distribution of seed plumpness and the important traits of fertile plants were assessed after each cycle of selection.
Seed plumpness is divided into five grades according to the degree of endosperm development and pericarp smoothness; 1 grade: the endosperm is full of seed coat and pericarp is the most smooth, 2 grade: the pericarp is quite smooth, 3 grade: the endosperm is about 3/4 full of seed coat, 4 grade: the endosperm is about 1/2 full of seed coat, and 5 grade includes others. Each plant may evaluate 2.5, 3.5, or 4.5 seed plumpness depending on percentage of different grade seeds.

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