Jan. 1,1925 
A Study of Variability in the Burt Oat 
37 
Table V.— Data on inheritance of basal hairs in 9 strains of Burt oat grown at 
the Akron Field Station and at the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station in 
1920 —-Continued 
Basal hairs in progeny 
Strain number and basal hairs in 
Number of kernels with 
hairs— 
Percentage of kernels with 
hairs— 
Abundant 
Few 
Absent 
Abundant 
Few 
Absent 
Long 
Mid¬ 
length 
Long 
Mid¬ 
length 
KANSAS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT 
station— continued 
Kansas No. 6094: 
Abundant_ 
0 
41 
1 
0 
0 
97.6 
2.4 
0 
Few_ 
0 
18 
48 
8 
0 
24.3 
64.9 
10.8 
Absent_ 
0 
63 
297 
407 
0 
8.2 
38.7 
53.1 
All strains: 
Abundant_ 
3 
136 
158 
39 
.9 
40.5 
47.0 
11.6 
Few_ 
31 
317 
655 
128 
2.8 
28.0 
57. 9 
11.3 
Absent_ 
55 
433 
4, 421 
5, 706 
.5 
4.1 
41.6 
53.8 
BOTH STATIONS 
Abundant_ 
549 
726 
287 
116 
32.7 
43.3 
17.1 
6.9 
Few_ 
108 
1,927 
2,036 
220 
2.5 
44.9 
47.5 
5.1 
Absent_ 
81 
2, 270 
12,070 
18,740 
.3 
6.8 
36.4 
56.5 
° No differentiation was made between the long and midlength subclasses of basal hairs in describing 
the kernels sown in 1920. 
The results obtained in the study of 
the basal-hair character in Burt oat 
indicate that the abundant long hairs 
probably are a recessive character. 
Apparently several factors are in¬ 
volved in the production of the various 
classes of basal hairs, or, if determined 
by a single main factor, several modi¬ 
fiers possibly are involved. The data 
indicate that the absence of basal hairs 
is partially dominant over their pres¬ 
ence in the Burt oat. This conclusion 
is in accord with the results obtained by 
Nilsson-Ehle (91), Zade (153), Surface 
(127), Love and Craig (70), and Fraser 
(37). The last named investigator ob¬ 
tained results which are very interest¬ 
ing in this connection. He observed 
that short basal hairs or no basal 
hairs are dominant over midlength 
basal hairs and obtained a ratio in 
F 2 of three of the former to one of 
the latter. 
AWNS 
The awns found in these strains of 
the Burt oat were classified as twisted, 
nontwisted, and absent. The non- 
twisted class was further subdivided 
into long and short. Data obtained 
in 1920 and in 1921 are presented 
separately. 
STUDY IN 1920 
The material from which the kernels 
used in starting these experiments was 
selected was machine threshed and 
many awns were broken off. For this 
reason, only the presence or absence of 
awns was recorded for the kernels sown 
at Manhattan in 1920. Hence there 
are no data on the inheritance of awns 
at the Kansas station in that year. How¬ 
ever, the kernels sown at Akron in 1920 
were selected with special reference to 
the awn and were described for this 
character. 
In the classification of the parental 
material sown at Akron in 1920 only 
three awn classes were recognized. 
These were twisted, nontwisted, and 
absent. In the nontwisted class were 
included the two subclasses later de¬ 
scribed in the progeny as long and 
short. These two subclasses grade 
into one another in such a way as to 
make exact classification very diffi¬ 
cult. Fraser (37) has included them 
in his “weak” awn class and uses the 
term “strong” awn to describe the 
class here called twisted. 
Four awn groups were recognized in 
the classification of the progeny ker¬ 
nels grown at Akron in 1920, namely, 
twisted, nontwisted long, nontwisted 
short, and absent (PI. 3). The twisted 
awns were similar to, although not as 
strongly developed as, the type of awn 
found in the wild species, Avena fatua 
and A. sterilis. They are rather stiff, 
twisted at the base, and more or less 
geniculate. The twisted lower portion 
of this awn is composed of alternate 
stripes of dark and light colored tissue. 
