Inheritance of the branching in hybrid populations among tetraploid wheat species and the new branched spike line 166-Schakheli

The new branched spike form of wheat was synthesized from a cross between a complex wheat line 171ACS {[(T. durum Desf. × Ae. tauschii Coss.) × S. cereale L. ssp. segetale Zhuk.] × T. aestivum L. ‘Chinese Spring’} (2n = 6x = 42, AABBDD) and durum wheat variety T. durum Desf. ‘Bereketli-95’ (2n = 4x = 28, AABB). This branched spike form is distinguished significantly from the other branched spike forms known so far. Later on basis of these plants have been developed the branched spike lines. This study was aimed to generate the segregating populations from reciprocal (F₁–F₃) and backcross (BC₁F₁–BC₁F₃) crosses between one of such lines—166-Schakheli (2n = 4x = 28, AABB) and tetraploid wheat species (T. polonicum L., T. turanicum Jakubz., T. durum Desf.) for revealing the inheritance character of this branching trait and study meiotic behavior in reciprocal (F₁, F₂) and backcross (BC₁F₁) progenies. Results showed that this trait is controlled by a single recessive gene despite certain irregularity against Mendelian law in F2 generations and does not depend on gene dosage, i.e., number of chromosomes.