Characteristics of primary trisomics in barley - a critical comment on the report

T. Tsuchiya
Department of Agronomy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, U.S.A.


Kaiser and Friedt (1987) reported that two primary trisomic series, Shin Ebisu 16 (SE16) and Hordeum spontaneum var. transcaspicum (HST) are different in their characteristics in corresponding types. Since I was the one who produced both sets, it seems to be appropriate to make a comment on their report.

First, these authors apparently do not know I produced 'and reported the detailed characteristics of the primary trisomics in H. spontaneum var. transcaspicum (Tsuchiya, 1954, 1956, 1958, 1959, 1960). During the period of several years, I not only produced the complete set of primary trisomics in H. spontaneum, but also observed them the entire growing period from germination to maturity at least once a day. I measured and observed every detail of character expression during the growing period. I repeated this process at least several years. Detailed characteristics were described and photographs of many plant parts were published (Tsuchiya, 1958, 1960, 1964).

Similarly, I produced another complete set of primary trisomics in a two rowed cultivar, Shin Ebisu 16 (SE 16). Observations, measurements and details were published with photographs (Tsuchiya, 1967).

In my work, I conduct research work myself with or without assistance of colleagues. Therefore, I am quite familiar with almost every detail of the characteristics.

Furthermore, I have studied (Tsuchiya, 1969) three more complete series developed by E. R. Kerber (Gateway and others), R. T. Ramage and associates (Betzes), and E. N. Larter (OAC 21 4x × Montclam 2x).

Detailed studies of all five complete series showed almost the same qualitative characteristics with no exceptions.

When E. N. Larter sent a series of more than 20 sets of seeds, I was able to classify all seven primary trisomic types by observing seed characteristics which were exactly the same as those in Hordeum spontaneum and SE 16 mentioned above.

I have already published photographs of spikes of seven trisomic types in SE 16. 1 did not see any reason to print the pictures provided by Kaiser and Friedt. It should be pointed out that the picture of the spike for Triplo 1 is from the hybrid plant between SE 16 and a 6-rowed type. Apparently the authors did not recognize that.

References:

Kaiser, and Friedt. 1987. BGN 17:46.

Tsuchiya, T.


table of contents | BGN main index