ORIGIN OF FALSE WILD OATS' 



R. J. Garber 

 Agricultural Experiment Station, Morgantoivn, West Va. 



THE occurrence of false wild oats 

 in cultivated varieties of Avena 

 sativa and A. orientalis has been 

 observed by several plant breeders. 

 The question of their origin is one which 

 has given rise to rather spirited discus- 

 sions. Nilsson-Ehle (1911) contends 

 that false wild oats are due to a loss 

 mutation whereas Tschermak (1914) 

 and Zade (1918) contend that they are 

 the result of natural crossing. Zade's 

 views are summarized in his mono- 

 graph, Der Hafer, pages 217 to 225 

 inclusive. 



During the summer of 1920 false 

 wild oats were observed in a number of 

 different pure lines of oats growing on 

 University Farm, at St. Paul, Minne- 

 sota. The lines in which false wild 

 oats appeared were carefully examined, 

 and a collection of individual plants 

 with different phenotypes was made. 

 In this paper only the false wild oats 

 which appeared in the varieties Victory, 

 Garton 784, and Aurora are dis- 

 cussed. The material which was col- 

 lected at University Farm^ was grown 

 during the summer of 1921 in the plant 

 breeding nursery at Morgantown, West 

 Virginia. 



As Nilsson-Ehle has pointed out, 

 false wild oats differ from the cultivated 

 varieties in which they appear in awn 

 development, articulation of both the 

 upper and lower seeds, and in the 

 amount of pubescence around the 

 articulation. Homozygous false wild 

 oats bear heavy geniculate awns and 

 have distinct fatua-like articulations 

 surrounded by dense tufts of hair on 

 both the upper and lower seeds. In 



general, heterozygous false wild oats 

 bear heavy geniculate awns on the 

 lower seeds only. On the lower seeds 

 the articulations and the amount of 

 hair around them are intermediate 

 between these same characters in the 

 homozygous false wild and cultivated 

 forms. The upper seeds of heterozy- 

 gous false wild oats are very similar 

 to the upper seeds of cultivated oats. 



VICTORY^ 



In 1918 a number of panicle selec- 

 tions were made from Victory oats at 

 University Farm. In 1920 one of the 

 plant rows which represented the 

 progeny of a single panicle was found 

 to contain false wild oats. The homo- 

 zygous and heterozygous false wild 

 Victory plants were easily distinguished 

 from one another as well as from the 

 true Victory plants. All forms had 

 white seed and open panicles but the 

 three different groups were clearly 

 separated in respect to awn develop- 

 ment, articulation of the seeds, and 

 pubescence around the articulation. 

 Seed of individual plants of each of the 

 three categories was grown separately 

 in 1921. From Table 1 the character 

 of the parent plant and the nature of 

 its progeny may be determined. All 

 the plants produced white seed. Homo- 

 zygous false wild Victory and Victory 

 plants bred true whereas the heterozy- 

 gous false wild Victory plants produced 

 progeny which again segregated into 

 sativa-like, heterozygous, and homozy- 

 gous false wild forms. The 15 individ- 

 ual plant rows coming from seed of 

 heterozygous plants produced a total of 



' Contriljution from the Department of Agronomy, West Virginia Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, Morgantown. Published with the approval of the Director. 



2 The writer is indebted to Dr. H. K. Hayes for permission to transfer the seed which pro- 

 duced the plants reported below from the Minnesota to the West Virginia Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station. 



^ The writer is indebted to A. Berg, Assistant Plant Pathologist, for the photographs; and to 

 T. E. Odland, Assistant Professor of Agronomy, and K. S. Quisenberry, Instructor in Agronomy, 

 for their aid in collecting the data. ^ 



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