6 
Journal o f Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXIX, No. 1 
this nursery, therefore, but further se¬ 
lections were made from it and the 
most promising homozygous and rust- 
resistant rows threshed. The grain 
from twenty-nine of these has been 
studied in four quality tests in an 
early effort to determine the quality of 
the hybrids in comparison with the 
parents and Marquis. 
INHERITANCE OF CHARACTERS 
The cross has furnished material for 
a study of the inheritance of several 
valuable and interesting plant charac¬ 
ters and grain qualities. These char¬ 
acters which have been studied are 
inheritance of the awn or its absence, 
color of the glumes, color of the kernels, 
date of heading, height of plant, re¬ 
sistance to stem-rust infection, and 
yield. The grain qualities which thus 
far have been analyzed in the hybrids 
are crude protein, for the quantity of 
the gluten; viscosity, for the quality of 
the gluten; gasoline color test for the 
color of the flour, and ash determina¬ 
tion for the amount of ash in the flour. 
As resistance to black stem rust was 
one of the principal objects of the 
research, the material grown at Uni¬ 
versity Farm, St. Paul, was artificially 
inoculated with stem rust, using nine 
different specialized (biologic) forms of 
stem rust common to the spring-wheat 
area. In addition to the epidemic artifi¬ 
cially produced at St. Paul, opportunity 
to study rust resistance of the material 
was afforded by the occurrence of 
natural infection, at Mandan, N. Dak. 
Important factors concerned with 
drought resistance were thought to be 
the presence or absence of awns, earli¬ 
ness of heading, height, and plant 
productiveness. The color of glumes 
and kernels apparently have no par¬ 
ticular connection with resistance to 
rust or drought, but were included to 
complete the study of the principal 
contrasting parental characters in the 
cross. The kernel color is of great eco¬ 
nomic importance. Red-kerneled vari¬ 
eties are demanded in the northern 
Prairie and Great Plains areas, while 
white wheats are preferred in the Pacific 
Coast States. 
The study here reported is concerned 
principally with the development of a 
hard red spring wheat for the northern 
Great Plains area. The principal ex¬ 
periments were conducted at the 
Northern Great Plains Field Station, 
Mandan, N. Dak., because there both 
rust and drought may occur with 
destructive severity. The cross, how¬ 
ever, is being used for breeding a com¬ 
mon white wheat resistant to rust and 
drought, for the Pacific Coast States, 
particularly California, where losses 
from black stem rust are not infre¬ 
quent. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE F x 
The F t plants bore apical awns, 
varying from 3 to 20 mm. in length. 
This was different from the Hard 
Federation parent, which is almost 
entirely awnless. The glumes of the 
F x plants were brown, but a somewhat 
lighter brown than those of the Hard 
Federation parent. The plants which 
were grown at Chico, Calif., showed a 
slight infection of both stem rust and 
leaf rust. They were tall but had 
the stiff stems of the Hard Federation 
parent. The kernels were not es¬ 
pecially hard, being somewhat softer 
than those of either of the parents, 
and showed occasional indication of 
“ yellowberry.” Some of the kernels 
appeared to be much softer than 
others. The kernels were slightly 
longer than those of either of the par¬ 
ents. A spike of an F! plant is shown in 
Plate 1, A in comparison with spikes of 
the parents. 
The Fi plants grown at St. Paul, 
Minn., in 1922, proved to be susceptible 
to stem rust. 
SEGREGATION OF CHARACTERS IN 
THE F 2 AND F 3 
A study of individual plants for the 
characters previously mentioned was 
made on the F 2 material grown at 
Davis, Calif., St. Paul, Minn., and 
Mandan, N. Dak., except that yields 
of the individual plants were not 
obtained from the California material. 
In the F 3 certain plant characters 
were further studied at "Mandan, 
N. Dak., and Davis, Calif. Only at 
Mandan were yields of individual 
plants obtained. Notes on rust re¬ 
sistance were obtained at both St. 
Paul and Mandan. 
A summary of the data recorded on 
the segregation of characters in F 2 and 
F 3 is presented. 
AWNS AND THEIR ABSENCE 
Biffen ( 4 ) stated that “the beardless 
condition is a dominant, the bearded a re¬ 
cessive character.” Other early workers, 
particularly Tschermak {35) and Spill¬ 
man {32), obtained similar results in 
the first generation and also showed 
that in the second generation the awn¬ 
less and awned plants occur in the 
monohybrid Mendelian ratio of 3:1. 
