INHERITANCE OF ANTHER CULTURE TRAITS IN BARLEY

Doubled haploid (DH) plants represent valuable tools for plant breedin g and genetic study. While DH plant production efficiency via anther c ulture has improved, genotypic effects are still considerable. The obj ective of this study was to investigate the inheritance of anther cult ure response to facilitate the application of anther culture to breedi ng programs. Two donor plant environments (held vs. growth chamber) we re compared for anther culture performance of four barley (Hordeum vul gare L.) parents [WA10217-83 and 'Hazen' with high green plant regener ation (GPR), WA9035-84 and W87773-83 with low GPR] and their 12 F-1 hy brids (4 x 4 complete diallel). The traits evaluated were number of em bryoids, total number of plants regenerated, and number of GPR per 100 anthers cultured. Genetic effects were significant while the effects of the two donor plant environments were not. There were additive and dominance effects for all three traits evaluated, and reciprocal effec ts for GPR. Intermediate responses generally resulted from high x low parent crosses in the F-1 for the three traits. The performance of F-2 populations from reciprocal crosses between Hazen and WA9035-84, and WA9035-84 and WA7773-83, confirmed the F-1 additive and dominance effe cts. The reciprocal effect in F-1 from crosses between WA9035-84 and W A7773-83 for GPR per 100 anthers was probably maternal. The GPR of two selected F-3 families verified transgressive segregation observed in the F-2. F-3 performance indicated that selection of recombinant genot ypes for higher GPR ability was effective. In conclusion, specific but complex genetic effects for anther culturability were demonstrated an d this information has application to barley breeding strategy.