BGN 12: Barley mutants with long-shaped and globe-shaped grains BARLEY GENETICS NEWSLETTER, VOL. 12, II. RESEARCH NOTES
Sodkiewicz and Gorney, pp. 4-7

II. 1. Barley mutants with long-shaped and globe-shaped grains.

T. Sodkiewicz and A. G. Gorney, Institute of Plant Genetics, Polish Academy of Sciences, 60-479 Poznan, Strzeszynska 30/36, Poland. "R"

The described mutants were found in a greenhouse-grown M2-generation of the Polish variety 'Damazy' treated with NMUA in 1972. Characters of these mutants are summarized in Table 1 and Figure 1.

Table 1. Short description of the mutants and their mother variety 'Damazy' (average of three years laboratory and greenhouse experiments).

Figure 1. Adult plants, spikes, grains and four-weeks seedlings of the mother variety 'Damazy' (K), mutant D7301 (1), mutant D7305a (2) and mutant D7307 (3).

The phenotype of the mutant D7301 is characterized by very long-shaped grains. Partially sterile spikes are typically formed. Glumes are waxed. The mature plants are semidwarf and produce many tillers.

The mutant D7301 was crossed in S9 with the mother variety 'Damazy'. Results of the F2 progeny indicate that the mutant character 'long-shaped grain' was determined by a single recessive gene. This is shown by the 3:1 segregation in F2 of the cross of normal-shaped grains with long-shaped grains (Table 2). The symbol lgr is proposed to designate the recessive gene. It seems that this lgr-character of the mutant D7301 can be useful as a genetic marker.

The two glo-mutants, D7305a and D7307, are dwarf and fertile. It was found that both glo-mutants, similarly to those described by Hauser and Fischbeck (1978, 1979, 1980), were monogenic recessive (Table 2).

Table 2.  F2 segregation data.

It is interesting that these glo -mutants formed characteristic undulate leaf blades, particularly in the early stage of development. Our measurements which were conducted on ten-days seedlings indicated that these mutants developed distinctly shorter first leaves and coleoptiles than the mother variety (Table 1). The glo-phenotypes in F2-generations of crosses also developed these characteristic dwarf seedlings. It suggests that the glo-phenotype could be identified in early stages of plant development (Fig. 1).

It is noteworthy that the glo-mutants grow well to maturity particularly in greenhouse conditions.

The localization of these glo-factors as well as their eventual allelism with the glo-genes described by Hauser and Fischbeck are unknown, but further investigations of these mutants are proposed.

The described stocks were sent to the Barley Genetics Stock Center, Fort Collins, Colorado.

References:
Fischbeck, G. and H. Hauser. 1978. Cytogenetic studies of some induced barley mutants. BGN 8:36-37.

Hauser, H. and G. Fischbeck. 1979. Genetic analysis of induced mutants. BGN 9:26-27.

Hauser, H. and G. Fischbeck. 1980. Genetic analysis of induced mutations. BGN 10:30-31.

BGN 12 toc
BGN Main Index