Premium
Registration of TEM‐SD Lehmann Lovegrass Germplasm
Author(s) -
Voigt P. W.,
Burson B. L.
Publication year - 1993
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/cropsci1993.0011183x003300010066x
Subject(s) - biology , germplasm , agronomy , botany
THE TEM-SD LEHMAN LOVEGRASS, Eragrostis lehmanniana Nees, germplasm (Reg. no. GP-63, PI 559907) was developed by the USDA-ARS Forage Improvement Research Unit, Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory, in cooperation with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station and was released in 1991. Lehmann lovegrass biotypes usually have 40 or more chromosomes and reproduce by diplospory (1), a type of gametophytic apomixis in which the embryo sac develops directly from the megaspore mother cell without meiosis. Because of apomixis, conventional genetic research and plant breeding have been restricted with this grass. Germplasm derived from accessions 459, 467, and 469, from the collections of T.B. Vorster, formerly of the Botanical Research Institute, Pretoria, Republic of South Africa, and originally collected from the Northern Cape Province, was confirmed to be diploid (2n = 2x = 20). Plants were meiotically stable with chromosomes pairing as 10 bivalents. Cytological studies of megasporogenesis revealed the occurrence of a normal meiosis. Thus, this diploid germplasm reproduces sexually (2). Lack of seed set after self-pollination indicates that this germplasm is primarily cross-pollinated. Plants of TEM-SD lehmann lovegrass are decumbent in growth habit, develop adventitious roots at the lower nodes, grow to a height of 30 to 40 cm, and have a seed mass of =0.7 mg 100 seed-. Thus, TEM-SD is similar in appearance to 'A-68' lehmann lovegrass. TEM-SD is a bulk harvest of seed produced in isolation from all (30) surviving plants derived through open-pollination from the three South African accessions. TEM-SD is the only known source of sexuality in lehmann lovegrass and is essential to further conventional genetic research with that species. Seed of TEM-SD will be maintained and distributed in limited quantities to breeders, geneticists, and other scientists upon written request to the Grassland, Soil, and Water Research Laboratory, 808 E. Blackland Rd., Temple, TX 76502. It is requested that appropriate recognition be given to the source of this germplasm if TEM-SD contributes significantly to new genetic information or to the development of new germplasms or cultivars.