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Cytology of Diploids, Natural and Induced Tetraploids, and Intra‐species Hybrids of Bahiagrass, Paspalum Notatum Flugge 1
Author(s) -
Forbes Ian,
Burton Glenn W.
Publication year - 1961
Publication title -
crop science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.76
H-Index - 147
eISSN - 1435-0653
pISSN - 0011-183X
DOI - 10.2135/cropsci1961.0011183x000100060006x
Subject(s) - paspalum notatum , tifton , geneticist , agricultural experiment station , hybrid , crop , biology , library science , agriculture , horticulture , botany , agronomy , computer science , ecology , dry matter , genetics
D IPLO.ID Pensacola bahiagrass (2n = 20), discovered growing wild near Pensacola, Florida, is one of the most popular perennial pasture grasses in Florida and the southern part of the rest of the Gulf States. More limited use has been made in the United States of broader leafed, more palatable but less winterhardy, tetraploid (2n = 40) types such as common bahiagrass and the Argentine variety. The breeding program at Tifton, Georgia, aimed at producing improved bahiagrass pasture varieties, is complicated by the presence of polyploidy and apomixis (at the triploid level and above) in the species. In the past, the apomictic mode of reproduction of desirable tetraploid types and hybrids between sexual diploids and apomictic tetraploids (5) restricted the breeder’s use of the germ plasm in this predominantly tetraploid species. Recently, the apomictic barrier to recombination of characters in natural tetraploids was broken by hybridization with sexual, induced tetraploids of Pensacola bahiagrass (7). Although somatic chromosome numbers have been reported for a number of biotypes and hybrids in this species, very little information regarding their meiotic behavior exists in the literature. The present paper concerns cytological observations on chromosome numbers and meiosis in various plant materials important to the breeding program at Tifton.