CHARACTERIZATION OF THE INTERSPECIFIC CROSS CICER-ARIETINUM L X CICER-JUDAICUM (BOISS)

An interspecific cross involving Cicer arietinum L. and C. judaicum (B oiss) No. 182 was established. The F-1 could be distinguished from the parents by its prostrate growth habit at the seedling stage and throu gh isozyme patterns for peroxidases and esterases. The inheritance of PRX-3 was found to be relatively simple and behaved as a monomer. Meio tic studies indicated the occurrence of six bivalents and four univale nts in about 6% of F-1 PMC's at metaphase I, but normal 8-8 chromosoma l distribution in anaphase I, indicating near complete homology. The F -1 hybrid was characterized for three morphological and six agronomica l characters. A large F-2 was studied for secondary branches per plant , 100-seed weight (g), pods per plant, and grain yield per plant (g). Distributions of F-2 for pod number and grain yield displayed high C.V . and were highly skewed in a positive direction. F-2 recombinants wer e isolated with a very large number of secondary branches and a high p od number and yield. Such wide variability is not normally encountered in intevarietal crosses.