Inheritance of anther culture derived green plantlet regeneration in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

A study was set up to determine the inheritance and combining ability of the factors anther culture response and green plant regeneration. Reciprocal crosses were made between cultivar Ringo Sztar, showing high anther culture response and the cultivars Ciano 067 and Benoist H77022, showing a high level of green plant regeneration. Averaged over all genotypes, 23.0% of the anthers responded and a callus induction frequency of 77.8% was observed. Of all the embryos, 43.0% developed into plantlets, 25.6% of the regenerants being green, the result being that 3.3 green plants per 100 anthers were formed. Genotypic effects accounted for 57.7%, 86.3% and 77.5% of the total variance of anther culture response, callus induction frequency and embryo induction frequency, respectively. Additive and dominant gene action was detected for all characteristics, including green plant regeneration. No reciprocal differences were found for anther culture response, embryo induction frequency and green plant regeneration, indicating no cytoplasmic effects. A small but significant reciprocal difference was found for callus induction frequency. Embryo production was primarily correlated with anther culture response and not with the number of embryos produced per plated anther or per responding anther. Possible mechanisms for the inheritance of green plant regeneration are discussed.Abbreviations CIRA callus induction frequency per responding anther - ERA embryo induction frequency per responding anther - FHB fusarium head blight - MS-medium Murashige & Skoog (1962) medium - REML residual maximum likelihood