82 



The Journal of Heredity 



studied. Love and Craig^ report a 

 number of wheat-rye crosses most of 

 which were completely sterile in the Fi. 

 They discuss, however, a wheat-rye 

 hybrid which gave one seed in each of 

 the Fi and F2 generations. The F3 

 plant was more wheat-like than the 

 Fi or Fo and did not show its hybrid 

 nature to any great extent. It pro- 

 duped many seeds from which an F4 

 generation was grown. The plants of 

 this F4 family were variable and seemed 

 to segregate according to a simple 

 Mendelian ratio of 3:1 with respect to 

 color of chaff, beards and color of 

 kernel. A difference in sterility was 

 also exhibited in this generation, some 

 of the plants being completely fertile 

 and some nearly sterile. The F2 plant 

 was bearded. The F3 plant was not 

 illustrated, but the authors state that 

 it was more wheat-like than either the 

 Fi or the F2 plants. The bearded habit 

 in cereals is generally recessive. The 

 F3 and later families should, therefore, 

 have all been bearded like the F2 plant, 

 but in the illustrations, approximately 

 three-fourths of the F4 plants were 

 beardless. If the lone seed which was 

 produced by the F2 plant had been 

 the result of cross-fertilization with 

 wheat, the result in the F4 generation 

 would be expected. The increased 

 fertility of the F3 plant also adds 

 weight to the supposition that a natural 

 or accidental back cross with wheat 

 might have occurred in the F2, to pro- 

 duce the wheat-like F3 plant. 



Besides the American investigators 

 mentioned above much work has been 

 done by European plant breeders in 

 attempting crosses between wheat and 



rye, but with the same general type of 

 results. 



HYBRIDS MADE AT PULLMAN, WASH. 



The work with wheat-rye hybrids 

 at the Washington Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station was begun in 1915 but 

 no fertile Fi plants were obtained until 

 Rosen was used as the rye parent in 

 1919. This rye was introduced into 

 Michigan from Russia in 1909. It is so 

 prolific that Spragg^ reports that it 

 has crowded out wheat in certain 

 sections of Michigan. It is more com- 

 patible with wheat than any other rye 

 worked with at this station, and is 

 unique in that partly fertile Fi plants 

 were obtained when it was used either 

 as male or female parent. During 

 the first four years various rye crosses 

 were tried with different wheats and 

 even barley and rye crosses were at- 

 tempted. A number of seeds were 

 obtained but most of them did not 

 grow. The few that did grow were fully 

 fertile and exactly like the female 

 parent, the flowers apparently having 

 been selfed in the operation of hybridiz- 

 ing. With Rosen rye it was different. 

 Seven crosses made with this rye pro- 

 duced 44 seeds from which only 8 

 plants were obtained that showed un- 

 mistakably their hybrid origin, that is, 

 they were intermediate. Four of these 

 crosses were rye-wheat, that is, rye was 

 the female parent, and three were 

 wheat-rye, that is, wheat was the 

 female parent. 



FIRST GENERATION OF RYE-WHEAT 

 HYBRIDS 



The four rye-wheat hybrids were 

 obtained with Rosen as the female 



Table 1. Showing the number of flowers treated, number of seeds set, number of Fi plants and 



number of F-i plants 



«Love, H. H. and Craig, W. T. 1919. Fertile wheat-rye hybrids. Journal of Heredity 10: 



195-207. 

 'Spragg, Frank A. 1921. Rosen Rye. Michigan Agr. Exp. Sta. Special Bulletin 105: 1-11. 



