1076 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXX, No. 11 
duced which bore a few hairs. Al¬ 
though, in 1922, 91 per cent of the 
progeny of kernels with hairs absent 
was described as without hairs, in 1923 
only 76.8 per cent of the progeny of 
parental kernels without hairs was so 
described. The fluctuations in the per¬ 
centages of true breeding progeny from 
parental kernels described as having 
basal hairs absent probably indicates 
that this character is influenced by en¬ 
vironmental or physiological factors. 
The results, however, apparently in¬ 
dicate the possibility of isolating strains 
of Kherson oats which will breed com¬ 
paratively pure for few as well as for 
no basal hairs. Presumably pure- 
breeding strains having few basal hairs 
are as numerous in the Kherson variety 
as grown at Akron as those having no 
basal hairs. The variation in length 
and abundance of basal hairs found in 
Kherson oats is shown in Plates 2 and 4. 
AWNS 
The present study was conducted 
chiefly to obtain data on the inheritance 
of awning in Kherson oats. Nilsson- 
Ehle (16) apparently first stated the 
belief that yellow color had an inhib¬ 
itory effect on awn development. The 
writers may be misled, but it appears 
that this theory possibly was advanced 
on the results observed by Nilsson- 
Ehle in a cross in which less than 25 
plants with yellow kernels were pro¬ 
duced in the F 2 generation, and of these 
few progeny plants some were awned. 
The results obtained by Surface (20) in 
his cross of Avena fatua with the culti¬ 
vated variety Kherson did not support 
this theory of Nilsson-Ehle. 
The results of Love and Fraser (13), 
Love and Craig (14 ), and Fraser (6) all 
fail to show conclusively that the 
Kherson or Sixty-Day oat contains an 
inhibitor for awns linked with yellow 
color. The failure to observe the ex¬ 
pected inhibitory effect is explained by 
these writers largely on the basis that 
the Burt oats used in their crosses car¬ 
ried no such inhibitor, and thus ob¬ 
scured the effect of the inhibitor carried 
by the Kherson or Sixty-Day variety. 
They further explain their failure to 
obtain an inhibitory effect from Sixty- 
Day in their crosses of Sixty-Day X 
Burt as being partially due to climatic 
conditions, which may favor the pro¬ 
duction of awns in one season or cause 
kernels which carry the gene for awns 
to fail to produce awns in other seasons. 
The results obtained in the present 
experiment do not indicate either the 
linkage of awnlessness and yellow color 
or the inhibitory effect of yellow color 
for the production of awns in the Kher¬ 
son variety. 
The data obtained in the study of 
awns in the Kherson oat in 1921, 1922, 
and 1923 are presented in Table IV. 
Parental florets having twisted awns 
produced progenies in 1921, of which 
about 48 per cent had twisted, 20 per 
cent had nontwisted long, 2 per cent 
nontwisted short awns, and 32 per cent 
was awnless. Parental florets having 
nontwisted long awns produced prog¬ 
enies of which 7.5 per cent had twisted 
awns, 45.2 per cent nontwisted long, 
1.4 per cent nontwisted short, and 45.9 
per cent had absent awns. Awnless 
parental florets produced progeny of 
which about 90 per cent were awnless, 
7 per cent had nontwisted long awns, 
1.6 per cent had nontwisted short awns, 
and 1.8 per cent had twisted awns. 
The data obtained in 1921 indicated 
that the twisted, nontwisted long, and 
absent awns differed in their hereditary 
behavior. It appeared that the ab¬ 
sence of awns was more constant in 
breeding behavior than the others and 
that the nontwisted long awn differs 
genetically from the twisted awn. 
Both types appeared similar in the 
production of florets with nontwisted 
short or absent awns. 
Much more definite data were ob¬ 
tained on the inheritance of awns in 
Kherson oats in 1922. These data 
indicate that the twisted awn possibly 
is recessive to the nontwisted long awns 
and to awnlessness. Nearly 95 per 
cent of the progeny of parental florets 
having twisted awns had twisted awns, 
while a very few had nontwisted long 
or short awns, and only about 5 per 
cent was awnless. The studies in 
Burt oats by Coffman, Parker, and 
Quisenberry (4) have shown the tend¬ 
ency of kernels in that variety having 
the twisted awn to produce progeny 
with awns of that character or no awns 
at all. Parental kernels of Kherson 
oats having nontwisted long awns pro¬ 
duced progeny in 1922 of which 64.9 
per cent had nontwisted long awns, 12 
per cent had twisted awns, 10.1 per 
cent had nontwisted short awns, and 
13 per cent was awnless. 
The failure of awnless parental 
kernels to produce progeny all of which 
were awnless has been noted by 
previous investigators. In the 1922 
crop of Kherson oats grown at Akron 
74.3 per cent of the progeny of awnless 
parental kernels was awnless, 5.8 per 
cent had nontwisted short awns, 18.7 
per cent had nontwisted long awns, 
and 1.2 per cent had twisted awns. 
