Inheritance of β-carotene concentration in durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. ssp. durum)

Despite being one of the important characteristics in determining pasta quality in durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum), there is no direct report on inheritance of β-carotene concentration. The objectives of this study were to determine the inheritance of β-carotene concentration and the number of genes involved in six crosses of durum. For the cross PDW-233 (P₁) × Bhalegaon-4 (P₂), F₁, F₂, BCP₁ and BCP₂ populations were developed. For all other crosses, only the F₁ and F₂ populations were developed. β-carotene concentration was determined for all populations and parents of each cross grown at Hol, Maharastra, India. The cross PDW-233 × Bhalegaon-4 was also evaluated at Dharwad, Karnataka, India. Low β-carotene concentration was partially dominant in most of the crosses. Broad sense heritability was 67 and 91% at Dharwad and Hol, respectively, for the cross PDW-233 × Bhalegaon-4 and varied from 74 to 93% for the other five crosses indicating the presence of additive gene effects. The frequency distributions of the trait in the F₂ populations were not normal and were skewed towards the lower parent. Segregation of β-carotene concentration in the six F₂ populations indicated that at least two major genes and two or three minor genes with modifying effects govern the trait. Analysis of variance indicated that environment had comparatively little influence on the trait and this should allow for easy selection. The joint scaling test revealed additive × additive, additive × dominance and dominance × dominance epistatic interactions in the cross PDW-233 × Bhalegaon-4. These authors contributed equally.