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Recessive, Day Length-Insensitive Earliness to Synchronize Flowering of Pearl Millet Hybrid Parents

OAR@ICRISAT

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/1806/
http://dx.doi.org/10.2135/cropsci1999.0011183X003900040015x
 
Title Recessive, Day Length-Insensitive Earliness to Synchronize Flowering of Pearl Millet Hybrid Parents
 
Creator Bidinger, F R
Hash, C T
Jayachandran, R
Rao, M N V R
 
Subject Millets
 
Description The availability of recessive genes for early flowering-daylength insensitivity offers an opportunity to synchronize the flowering of late-flowering or daylength-sensitive parents with that of early-flowering parents without necessarily affecting the flowering of their hybrids, provided that the earlier parent does not carry the same recessive allele. This study evaluated the hypothesis that incorporating the recessive e1 allele for early flowering-daylength insensitivity into a late-flowering, photoperiod-sensitive pollinator in pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) would synchronize its flowering and improve seed production with earlier-flowering female parents, without affecting the time to flowering or the performance of the resulting hybrids. An e1/e1 isoline of the late-flowering pollinator ICMP85410, produced by six backcrosses, flowered 16 days earlier under natural daylengths at Patancheru, India (17 deg N) and 19 days earlier under extended daylengths (equivalent to 29 deg N) than its near-isogenic E1/E1 counterpart. As a consequence, it successfully produced hybrid seed when sown simultaneously with early, male-sterile line 843A, whereas the late isoline failed under the same conditions. The E1/e1 versions of eight near-isogenic hybrids (on a range of eight E1/E1 male-steriles) flowered an average of 3 days earlier than their E1/E1 counterparts in 2 yr of tests under both natural and extended daylength conditions at the same location. This earlier flowering had small effects on hybrid yield components, consistent with known effects of earliness in the crop, but did not affect grain yield. The results indicated that the e1 allele is a powerful tool for exploiting heterosis between early-and late-flowering parents in pearl millet, which is otherwise difficult to realize without complicated seed production practices.
 
Date 1999
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/1806/1/CropSci39%281049-1054%29_1999.pdf
Bidinger, F R and Hash, C T and Jayachandran, R and Rao, M N V R (1999) Recessive, Day Length-Insensitive Earliness to Synchronize Flowering of Pearl Millet Hybrid Parents. Crop Science, 39 (4). pp. 1049-1054.