4 BULLETIN 139%, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
ABNORMALITIES IN SACATON JUNE CORN 
When plants of Sacaton June corn are examined carefully, minor 
abnormalities or departures from type may be detected in something 
like 25 per cent of the individuals. This may seem to many a very 
high percentage, but to those accustomed to a critical examination 
of commercial varieties of maize the proportion will be recognized | 
as not unusual. The number recorded as abnormal depends, of 
course, on the rigor with which the standard of uniformity is applied. 
In the first season when the open-pollinated ears were planted as | 
the foundation stocks of the two breeding blocks, 35 types of abnor- 
malities were recognized in the 1,936 plants involved. In 1919, 
following the first year of selfing, this number was increased to 60. | 
The nature of these abnormalities is indicated by the following list 
of brief designations taken from our early notes: : 
Weak stalk, twisted stalk, stalk bent above ear, rolled leaves, contorted main 
stalk, ear replacing main stalk, main stalk missing, shortened internodes, upper 
leaf blades erect, monostichous blades, tubular leaf sheaths, light-colored broad 
blades, variegation, small light-green spots, blades striped light green, yellow 
blotches, dead stripes, dead blotches, dead leaves, dead with no ear, bullate blades, 
crumpled blades, longitudinally folded blades, eroded blades, concave blades, nar- 
row blades, short stiff blades, leaves failing to unroll, dead tissue between the veins, 
blades broadly streaked with dark red, tassel branches erect, bract at base of tassel, 
bladeless sheath, seed in tassel, staminate tip to ear, interrupted ear, no ear, de- 
formed ear, aborted tassel, sterile anthers, dwarf plant, aborted husks, ear cross- 
ing main stalk, second ear silking first, silk in tassel, ear exceeding husk, bear’s- 
foot ear, central spike thickened. 
Subsequent studies have shown that many of these aberrations. 
sppse not to be inherited, and others are different manifestations 
of the same genetic variation. Most of the abnormalities were of 
such a minor nature as to make it seem improbable that they would 
influence yield. 
The results in the 1919 selfed experiment, however, showed a rather 
high negative correlation between yield and the prevalence of abnor- 
malities. This planting comprised 20 progenies and 764 plants, and 
on these a total of 545 abnormalities was recorded, an average of 0. 7 
abnormalities per plant. In the individual progenies the average 
ranged from 0. 20 to 1.91. Arranged in their order of freedom from 
abnormalities the series agrees very closely with their order when 
arranged by total ear length. The product movement correlation 
of percentage of abnormalities and length of ear is —0.48 +0. 12. 
These results seem to indicate that minor detectable abnormalities 
have a measurable infiuence on yield. 
PARENT-OFFSPRING CORRELATIONS IN THE SELFED EXPERIMENT 
The four seasons from 1919 to 1923 provide 76 parent-offsprin 
comparisons. At the end of each season the progenies were atraae 
in order of the average total ear length, and the relation between 
the rank of the progeny from which the parent ear was selected and 
the rank of the resulting progeny affords a measure of the inheritance. 
The method of selection whereby two plants were selected from each 
of the five rows having the highest average ear length results in most 
of the parents being chosen from the higher yielding rows. During 
the entire experiment approximately one-half of the parent ears were 
taken from progenies of ranks 1 to 4. The average rank of the prog- 
enies resulting from this group of ears was 8. 3, while the average ran 
of the progenies from parents of ranks 5 to 20 was 12. 2. 
