Selection and genetic improvement of pollen fertility restorer lines with Triticum timopheevii cytoplasm in common wheat

The paper summarizes the selection and improvement of pollen fertility restoration in cytoplasmic male-sterile lines during the past 30 years at Jiangsu Province, China. A fertility restorer line (R16) with a good history of strong and stable restoring ability to different sterile lines was bred by accumulating fertility-restoring genes from derivatives of T797 and other restorer lines such as Primepi. A series of well-performing restorer lines with similar fertility-restoring ability has been bred by improving agronomic characters, disease-resistance and kernel size of R16. The restoring ability of these restorer lines using different male-sterile lines demonstrates that fertility restoration is no longer an obstacle for commercial utilization of hybrid wheat with the Triticum timopheeviii cytoplasmic male-sterile system. Line 2114 is a restorer with a single restoring gene transferred from Aegilops umbellulata. Its restoring ability, using both difficult and easily restored lines was 82% and 93.3% respectively. Maiyou No. 5, one hybrid variety, showed 13.2% yield advantage over the control variety in the Jiangsu Province registration test in 1997-1998 and was superior to nine other varieties adapted to the Jiangsu Province.