IMPROVING SELF-FERTILIZING CROPS 



139 



TABLE XXXI. AVERAGE YIELDS AND AVERAGE WINTER INJURY OF THE 



BETTER WINTER WHEATS GROWN AT UNIVERSITY FARM AND AT THE 



WASECA SUBSTATION 



The pure-line parentage of the Turkey-Odessa crosses is not 

 known, although the parents are believed in all cases to have 

 originated from a single plant. At the time the crosses were made, 

 in 1902, there was no pedigreed Turkey available with the winter- 

 hardy ability of Minnesota 1488. One of the recent crosses made 

 is between the best Turkey selection, Minnesota 1488, and Min- 

 hardi. Both parents are winter-hardy and are good yielders; the 

 Turkey likewise produces good quality seed. This shows what is 

 believed to be the correct procedure in plant breeding. 



Breeding Beans Resistant to Colletotrichum Lindemuthia- 

 num. Extensive tests of the reaction between physiological 

 strains of anthracnose and host plants were made at the Cornell 

 Station. Four groups of beans were obtained; (1) Resistant to 

 both strains, (2) resistant to strain A and susceptible to strain F, 

 (3) susceptible to A and resistant to F, (4) susceptible to both F 

 and A. Wells' Red Kidney was practically immune to strain A 

 and highly resistant to strain F, while Michigan Robust carried 

 resistance to the F strain only. The latter is a white navy bean 

 of superior yielding ability as was pointed out in the preceding 

 chapter. McRostie (1919) crossed these two varieties to obtain 

 a bean which possessed in addition to the characteristics of 

 Robust, resistance to strain A of anthracnose. Segregation 

 occurred for resistance to strain A on a simple Mendelian 3: 

 1 ratio with susceptibility recessive. In the second and third 

 generations, a white navy bean homozygous for resistance to 

 both physiological strains of anthracnose was obtained. 



An Improved Strain of Tobacco. Connecticut Havana tobacco 

 introduced among Wisconsin farmers gave satisfactory results as 



