Inheritance and agronomic performance of an apetalous flower mutant in Brassica napus L

A spontaneous mutant with apetalous flowers was obtained from a hybrid progeny in Brassica napus. The result of genetic analysis showed that the apetalous character was controlled by only one gene locus, petalous flower exhibited incomplete dominance over apetalous flower and that its expression was not affected by cytoplasmic factors. Sixteen agronomically important characteristics of the apetalous line Apet33-10 were compared with those of its petalled near-isogenic line Pet33-10. Results from 4 years of tests indicated that there was no difference between Apet33-10 and Pet33-10 in all tested agronomic characteristics, except for the pod number of main inflorescence and second-order branches at low sclerotinia disease incidence. The Sclerotinia sclerotiorum disease severity index of Apet33-10 was significantly lower than that of Pet33-10, and correspondingly, the plot yield of Apet33-10 was increased obviously in comparison to that of Pet33-10 if sclerotinia disease was serious. The pod number of main inflorescence of Apet33-10 was significantly lower than that of Pet33-10. On the other hand, the pod number of second-order branches of Apet33-10 was significantly higher than that of Pet33-10, hence no overage difference of the pod number per plant was observed between the two lines.