II. FELTED AND SMOOTH CHAFF. 



The inheritance of the felting of chaff in wheat has not pre- 

 viously been worked out in any great detail. Biffen 1 states in 

 regard to this character " The felted or velvety character is 

 dominant, the glabrous recessive." In many cases the 3: 1 ratio 

 was obtained in the F 2 , but in the case of Rivet crosses a series was 

 met with in the ¥ x and a ratio of 223 : 116 in the F 2 . In the F 3 , 

 however, the splitting was simple. Tschermak", in a more recent 

 account, states that felting of the glumes prevails over smoothness, 

 but that in many crosses the F! is plainly intermediate and the 

 splitting in the second generation is an impure one in which the 

 various stages of felting stand to smooth in the ratio 3:1. In one 

 case, where Rivet bearded was crossed with Saxon red, Rimpau 

 mentions the total disappearance of felting in the hybrid. Pitseh* 

 found in Felted Essex x felted Rouge inver sable some smooth progenv 

 in the F 2 . The Svalof results agree with the Mendelian scheme 

 and ratios of 2*7 to 1, 3*7 to 1 and 2'8 to 1 were obtained. In all 

 cases the first generation was felted and in one case in the second 

 generation of smooth Svalof Extra Square head crossed with a felted 

 wheat one intermediate plant was found. 



Complex Felting. 



In this section cases are dealt with in which the felting is due 

 to more than one factor. The first four crosses with a felted wheat 

 were made at Lyallpur in 1907 and in all cases a pure line selected 

 from Punjab Type 9, a red wheat with densely felted chaff, was 

 employed as one of the parents. This was chosen on account of 

 its high yielding power and strength of straw while the other parents 



' Biffen, Jour, of Agr. Science, 1, 1905% p. 24. 



* Tschermak, Di« Z&hibmg do- land. KuUurpflanzen, I'-:. IV, 1910 ; Zeit. /. d.land. 

 VertueJbwxsen in Oetterreieh, 1901, s. 1029 

 S Rimpau, Land. Jahrbufher, 1891. 

 i Pitsch, Drvtsche Lund. Prftte, 1899. 



