Inheritance of high palmitic acid content in the sunflower mutant CAS-12 and its relationship with high oleic content

CAS‐12 is a sunflower mutant with increased levels of palmitic (C16: 0 = 30%) and oleic (C18: 1 = 55%) acids in its seed oil, hence it has a reduced linoleic acid content (C18: 2 < 5%). This study was conducted to determine the inheritance of high C16: 0 content and its relationship with high C18: 1 content in CAS‐12. Reciprocal crosses involving CAS‐12, CAS‐5 (high C16: 0 content), HAOL‐9 (high C18: 1 content) and HA‐89 (standard fatty acid profile) were made. The F₁, F₂ and BC₁F₁ generations were obtained. The genetic control of the high C16: 0 trait in CAS‐12 was partially recessive and gametophytic. In all cases, this character segregated in the ratio 19: 38: 7 (low: intermediate: high C16: 0 content) in the F₂ generation. These results, together with the lack of segregation for C16: 0 content in crosses between CAS‐12 and CAS‐5, indicated that the genetic control of the high C16: 0 trait in CAS‐12 was similar to that in CAS‐5 in being controlled by partially recessive alleles (p1, p2, and p3) at three loci. Crosses between HA‐89 and CAS‐12, and HAOL‐9 and CAS‐5 (segregating for C16: 0 and C18: 1) demonstrated that the high C16: 0 and the high C18: 1 traits were independently inherited. However, C18: 1 segregation in these crosses exhibited reversal of dominance. Apparently, the low C18: 1 parental lines carried modifier genes causing the deviation.