570 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXVIII, No. 6 
Table III.— Total number of plants and numbers with hairy neck and glabrous 
neck in the progeny of each of 10 wheat-like plants with hairy necks selected in 
the progeny of wheat-rye hybrids, with data on certain head characters 
Number of progeny plants 
Head 
charac¬ 
ters of 
progeny 
Selection number and head characters 
Total 
Hairy-necked 
Glabrous¬ 
necked 
Awnless, white-chaffed: 
A........ 
92 
Number 
13 
Per cent 
14 
79 
(a) 
B........ 
100 
16 
16 
84 
(a) 
C______ 
40 
40 
100 
0 
(a) 
D----__ 
28 
9 
32 
19 
(b) 
E____ 
-66 
5 
8 
61 
(b) 
F_1_____ 
59 
13 
22 
46 
(a) 
Awned, white-chaffed: 
G______ 
26 
13 
50 
13 
(b) 
II____ 
18 
18 
100 
0 
(a) 
I_________ 
31 
22 
71 
9 
(b) 
K_______ 
98 
98 
100 
0 
(c) 
( a ) All plants with the same head characters as the parent selection. 
( b ) One semiawned plant with red chaff included, all others with the same head characters as the parent 
selection. 4 
(c) Eighty-four bearded, white-chafEed plants, 14 semiawned plants, all white-chaffed. 
All 10 of the plants selected in 1922 had been fertilized naturally, no attempt 
being made to control pollination by bagging or isolation. These plants were 
fully fertile, with the exception of selection K, in which the fertility was about 
75 per cent. The seed of these plants germinated well and about 75 per cent 
of the kernels produced plants the next year, which was fully equal to the per¬ 
formance of several pure lines of wheat sown in the same nursery. 
The pubescence on the peduncles of the several selections made in 1922 varied 
somewhat in amount and extent. Several of the necks are shown in Plate 4, 
together .with the necks of wheat and rye. The pubescence on selection I is 
very heavy, the hairs extending down the neck for 5 or more inches below the 
head, which is farther than has been observed on any rye plant examined. Selec¬ 
tion K has a sparse pubescence, extending down the neck not more than an inch. 
The pubescence in the progenies of different selections in some cases was of much 
the same type as that of the parental selection, while in other cases different 
members of the progeny of a selected parent varied considerably among them¬ 
selves as to pubescence. 
In the progenies of the 10 selections, as shown in Table III, there were in all 
247 plants with hairy necks and 311 with glabrous necks. Only 3 of these 10 
selections, C, H, and K, produced plants all of which were hairy-necked. It is 
probable that these progenies are homozygous with respect to this character, but 
this is not regarded as a certainty. The expression of the character in later 
generations must be observed before it can be concluded that strains entirely 
homozygous in respect to the hairy-neck character have been established. 
On the matter of the fixation of the hairy-neck character, Carman ( 1) who 
conducted some of the earliest and most extensive experiments on wheat-rye 
hybrids, reports as follows: 
The Rural New Yorker No. 6 is one of the rye-wheat hybrids, though all appearance of rye has disap¬ 
peared except that the culms just under the heads are now and again downy as in rye. This downiness 
of the stem is variable. We have tried by selection for many years to fix it without any approach to success. 
Of all our rye-wheat hybrids, the downy culm is permanent in but one, and that resembles rye in several 
other respects. 
The progenies of the other 7 selections (A, B, D, E, F, G, and I) consisted of 
both hairy-necked and glabrous-necked plants, there being a total of 91 plants 
with hairy necks and 311 with glabrous necks, or very nearly a 1 to 3 ratio. 
