Inheritance of Morphological Characters in Isabgol (Plantago ovata Forsk.)

Abstract

Isabgol (Plantago ovata Forsk.) is an important export oriented medicinal crop cultivated in India. Morphological characters are useful in crop improvement program as markers. However, there were no reports on inheritance of morphological characters in Isabgol. Our aim is to study the inheritance of leaf color (light and dark green), leaf curling (curly and normal), leaf hairiness (glossy and hairy) and plant height (tall and dwarf) using F2 population derived from a cross derived from DPO-401 and DPO-324 parents. Hybrid (F1) had light green leaves, no leaf curling, hairy leaf and tall plant type. F2 segregation analysis revealed that, there were two (Lr1 and Lr2) genes with duplicate gene action controlling leaf color, single recessive gene (cl) controlling leaf curliness and two genes (H1 and H2) controlling the leaf hairiness with single dominant gene either of H1 or H2 producing the leaf hairy phenotype. Plant height was controlled by two genes (Dw1 and Dw2) with single dominant gene either of Dw1 or Dw2 producing the tall phenotype. The expression of these visible markers is independent of environment and therefore, can be useful as markers in linkage map construction and also as phenotypic tags in marker assisted selection.