Inheritance of plant height and allelism tests of the dwarfing genes in Chinese barley

In order to find new dwarfing genes, the inheritance of plant height in 25 Chinese barley dwarf accessions was studied and allelism tests carried out, not only between the dwarfing genes found but also with the known dwarfing genes uz, br, sdw and denso. The results showed that out of the 25 dwarf accessions, 20 were due to monogenic recessiveness and four to digenic recessiveness. Only the short plant character in ‘1974E’ was controlled by a recessive together with a dominant dwarfing gene. In the present study, seven recessive and one dominant new dwarfing genes were identified. Five recessive genes were found in the monogenic mutants ‘91G318’, ‘91D27’ and ‘93‐597’ and in the Tibetan monogenic dwarf landraces ‘Jia Jiu’ and ‘BQK’, respectively. The other two recessives were found in the Tibetan digenic dwarf landraces ‘ZLL’ and ‘ZLLQK’, and the one dominant gene in the digenic mutant ‘1974E’.