Inheritance of Cold Hardiness in Triticum aestivum x Synthetic Hexaploid Wheat Crosses.
A.E. Limin and D.B. Fowler

ABSTRACT

Synthetic hexaploid wheat, produced by combining tetraploid wheat (AB genome) with Triticum tauschii (D genome), was crossed to modern hexaploid wheat (Triticum aestivum ABD genome) in an attempt to introduce new cold hardiness genes into common hexaploid wheat gene pool. The cold hardiness levels of F₁ hybrids ranged from similar to parental means to equal to the hardy parent, indicating that cold hardiness was controlled by both additive and dominant genes. As expected when dominant gene action is involved, differences between F₂ and parental means were smaller than comparable differences in the F₁. Frequency distributions of F₂-derived F₃ lines also suggested that dominant genes were involved in the control of cold hardiness in some crosses. Heritability estimates for cold hardiness ranged from 63 to 70% indicating that selection for cold hardiness should be effective in populations arising from crosses between common and synthetic hexaploid wheat. However, high selection pressure on the progeny of crosses that included the most hardy T. aestivum, T. durum, and T. tauschii, are not promising sources of new genes to increase the maximum cold hardiness potential of common hexaploid wheat.

Keywords

Triticum aestivum - triticum durum - Triticum dicoccum - Triticum tauschii - cold hardiness - winter wheat - interspecific hybrid - gene expression.

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