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Wheat Information Service
Number 84: 19-24 (1997)
Research article
Performance of alloplasmic wheat lines in a
moisture stress environment
M.Tahir and H. Ketata
International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas
(ICARDA), P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria
Summary
Wheat cultivars Chinese Spring, Jones Fife and Zargoon along with
their 37 alloplasmic lines were evaluated for a number of agronomic
traits under cold and moisture stress in a Mediterranean environment.
Both nuclear and cytoplasmic factors seem to be involved in the
control of grain yield, frost tolerance, yellow rust resistance and
to less extent kernel weight and protein content. Different cytoplasm
may be more or less advantageous depending on the donor of the
nuclear genes. Cytoplasm from T. dicoccoides, Ae. speltoides,
and Ae. crassa seems to confer better performance of
related alloplasmic wheat lines grown under drought and cold
conditions. The traits such as spike length, grains/spike and plant
height are primarily controlled by nuclear genes.
Introduction
Wheat-related species have been used in genetics and breeding
research to transfer useful nuclear genes from alien species into the
cultivated wheat such as genes controlling resistance to certain
diseases (Ceoloni et al. 1988; Knott and Zhang 1990). Cytoplasm of
wheat relatives has been found to interact with nuclear genes
of Triticum aestivum to induce male sterility in wheat (Wilson
and Ross 1962), a process that was used to produce hybrid wheat.
Nucleus substitution lines with alien cytoplasm have been used to
investigate the phylogeny of wheat and to explore the possibility of
producing nucleo-cytoplasmic hybrids (Kihara 1963, 1973, 1979, 1980;
Maan and Lucken 1971; Tsunewaki et al. 1976; Mukai et al. 1983;
Tsunewaki 1988). The effect of alien cytoplasm on gene expression in
wheat was highly variable depending on the wheat nucleus and the
environment.
Despite the increased interest in alien species by breeders in recent
years, little research has been conducted to assess the influence of
alien cytoplasm on agronomic traits of wheat grown under moisture and
temperature stress. This study reports on the performance of a number
of alloplasmic lines evaluated in a dry and cold environment typical
of the Mediterranean region.
Materials and methods
Three wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars, Chinese
Spring (CS), Jones Fife (JF) and Zargoon (ZR) along with related 37
alloplasmic wheat lines were grown at ICARDA's main research station
at Tel Hadya, Syria (North latitutde 36-degree 1 minute, East
longitude 36-degree 56 minutes) during the 1993-94 season. Planting
on 7 December 1993 was made according to a RCB design with 3
replications. Plots consisted of six 3.75 m rows spaced 30 cm apart.
The growing season was dry with a total precipitation of 277 mm and
relatively cold during the winter months. There were 50 days of frost
distributed over the months of November 1993 through March 1994 with
the lowest absolute temperatures recorded in January (-8.7C) and
February (-7.5C). The month of April coinciding with flowering was
particularly dry (less than one mm of rain). Data were recorded on a
plot basis for the following traits: plant height (cm), spike length
(cm), number of grains/spikes, thousand kernel weight (g), protein
content of the grain (percent dry matter), and grain yield (kg/ha).
Data were also recorded on all entries for their field reaction to
frost and yellow rust using the following scale: R (resistant), MR
(moderately resistant), MS (moderately susceptible), and S
(susceptible) based on the degree of observed damage due to frost or
the type of plant reaction and extent of infestation by the
disease.
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