1796 



The Cornell Reading-Courses 



After one has had some practice it is safe to remove the anthers, or emas- 

 culate the flowers, in the morning and to apply the pollen in the after- 

 noon. This method is not to be recommended for beginners, and should 

 be used only when the grower is well acquainted with the nature of the 



anthers and knows just when they may 

 be removed without danger of losing 

 pollen. 



After the pollen has been applied, 

 careful notes should be taken describing 

 the method of making the cross. If pollen 

 from the Silvermine variety is applied to 

 a flower of the Sixty Day variety, the 

 cross would usually be recorded as Sixty 

 Day x Silvermine. In other words, in 

 hybridization the female parent is 



Fig. 113. — An oat flower after the 



glumes have been removed, showing recorded first 

 the anthers (a), the two-parted 

 pistil (p), and the young embryo 



In hybridizing oats it is usually better to 

 take a single branch or spikelet of a head, 

 so that two or three flowers may be pollinated with the same kind of 

 pollen. The other flowers en the head may be pulled off, or they may be 

 allowed to grow if care is taken to tag the flowers that have been 

 crossed. 



Hybridization is not recommended as a means of improving varieties 

 unless the grower plans to become a specialist in seed production. In the 

 first place, it is difficult to make the hybrids and there is a large amount 

 of detail connected with the work which makes it very laborious for the 

 grower who has many other demands on his time. In any case, hybridiza- 

 tion should not be used as a method of improvement unless varieties are 

 being grown which have certain characters that would tend to make 

 a better variety if they could be combined in one strain. For example, 

 one variety may be nearly or wholly rust-resistant, but a small yielder. 

 Another variety may be a large yielder, but very susceptible to rust. 

 In such a case it might be advisable to resort to hybridization in an attempt 

 to combine these qualities in one offspring. As a rule, however, one can- 

 not be sure that such combinations will result satisfactorily unless it is 

 known that certain characters are transmitted and are unit characters, 

 as described in Lesson No. 38 of the Cornell Reading-Course for the Farm. 

 At the present time all the characters in oats have not been studied 

 thoroughly enough so that it is known exactly which ones are transmitted 

 through hybridization. It is known to be possible to cross one variety 

 possessing awns, or beards, with another that is awnless, thereby obtain- 

 ing an awned type. It is known also to be possible to cross a black oat 



