Parent‐inbred Progeny Relationships of Selected Orchardgrass Clones 1

INBREEDING is one of the effective procedures used in the improvement of certain naturally cross-pollinated crops. Principles for its utilization have been developed primarily through research on corn, but may have application to forage crops. Self-pollination, when possible, provides an opportunity to evaluate breeding potentialities of selected plants in inbred progeny tests. It also may provide valuable breeding material for selection purposes as a consequence of the resulting segregation. Any value of inbreeding, however, is dependent upon its effectiveness in isolating superior genotypes capable of transmitting desirable germ plasm to their offspring in advanced generation recombinations and synthetic varieties. The present investigations were undertaken to obtain both practical and fundamental information on certain parent-inbred progeny relationships in Orchardgrass. In the first phase, desirable clones were selfed and vegetatively propagated the following year for direct comparison with their inbred progenies in the same plot. Promising St plants were in turn selfed and their 'S2 progenies compared with parental S0 and S-,̂ plants. This made possible a study of the degree to which agronomic characteristics of parent plants were reflected in their inbred progenies when following a typical pedigree system of breeding without replication. This procedure also made possible opportunities to observe inbreeding effects and to carry out selection for desirable genotypes. In the last phase of the investigation an intensive study was made of 28 clones, varying widely in agronomic performance, and their S.^ progenies. Parental clones and S± progenies were evaluated on a plant-to-plant basis in repli-