FACTORS FOR YIELD ANT) QUALITY OF SPRING WHEAT 
39 
than that of Hard Federation. It was possible, on the other hand, 
to obtain strains having a shorter fruiting period than that of Marquis. 
HEIGHT 
Stature, or height, is an agronomic problem in wheat production 
on the dry lands of Montana. Plate 1 illustrates the difference in 
height of Marquis (A) and Hard Federation (B) grown in the varie- 
tal plat experiments at Bozeman. Hard Federation frequently is 
not tall enough for convenient harvesting. A knowledge of the 
inheritance of height and its effect on production under different 
conditions is important. 
Freeman (W), in a durum-common wheat cross, found the Fi 
hybrids taller than the taller parent and a wide segregation for height 
in the F 3 generation. In Kota-Hard Federation crosses Clark (5) 
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found that tallness 
appeared partially 
dominant but was 
due principally to 
heterosis and also eas- 
ily affected by envi- 
ronmental conditions. 
Data for reciprocal 
crosses in the F 2 gen- 
eration are available 
from Bozeman and 
Moccasin, and those 
from Bozeman are 
comparable with the 
parent varieties. The 
F 2 plant data are giv- 
en in Table 37 and 
are shown graphi- 
cally in Figure 7 . All 
dwarf plants were 
omitted from this 
study. Height was 
measured from the 
base of the culms to 
the tip of the spike, 
not including the 
awnlets of awnletted 
strains. 
The data in Table 
37 show that the F 2 
hybrids are intermediate in height with the parents and with a 
greater range than either. None of the hybrids, however, attained 
the extremes in height and shortness reached b} 7 some parent plants. 
The reciprocal crosses show what might be considered as a slight 
maternal influence at Moccasin and a paternal influence at Bozeman. 
In each case the differences between the reciprocal crosses are some- 
what more than three times their probable errors, but in view of 
their opposite tendencies it is doubtful whether either is due to 
inherent causes. 
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Fig. 7.— Frequency distribution of F2 and F3 hybrid wheat 
plants and the range of variation of the Marquis and Hard 
Federation parents, together with their average height at 
Bozeman, Mont., in 1923 and 1924 
