Disease in plantsWard, H. Marshall (Harry Marshall)
Science
Disease in plants
Ward, H. Marshall (Harry Marshall)
Plant diseases
By carefully separating the closest and densest white wheats from the
closest and densest red ones, he got in 1878 a large number of each
coming nearer to the type sown than did the mongrel forms intermingled
with them: these reversions and intermediate forms were then rigidly
eliminated, and only the deepest coloured and densest red and white
forms again sown.
In 1879 these two chosen varieties were constant, so far as concerned
those selected from the crossing of female English white with male
German red wheat, and the following year proved the constancy of the red
variety in the reciprocal cross. In 1886 all four varieties--_i.e._ the
two reds and the two whites of both the crossings--had become constant.
Still more instructive are the results of the cross between the same
white English non-bearded wheat and a red German bearded wheat.
The first results of the crossing in 1875 showed the loose ear of the
German mother, but was paler in colour; while the influence of the
English father was shown by the absence of beard.
From the reversions and mixtures of the mongrels showing reminiscences
of the parents in all degrees in 1877, rigid selections and re-sowings
were made as before, and Rimpau eventually got four very distinct
varieties, two red and two white, a bearded and a beardless form of
each, and these were declared fixed and constant in 1879-1882.
Passing over many similar results, and merely noting a very successful
variety got from a cross between a very early ripening loose red
American wheat and the dense heavy cropping English Square-head--the
crossed variety which has proved very suitable for certain light soils
and dry climates on the Continent, which demand very rapid ripening, and
are therefore of great physiological and technical interest--I must pass
on to note the curious result of the successful hybridisation of wheat
and rye. This cross has been effected several times, and first in this
country according to reports from Edinburgh (1875), New York (1886), and
elsewhere, and Rimpau's careful experiments seem to leave no doubt on
the matter.
First I must remind you that wheat (_Triticum_) differs from rye
(_Secale_) in several marked characters, such as the breadth and shape
of the glumes, the number of flowers in the spikelet, etc.; and that the
cultivated rye differs from cultivated wheats in the characters of the
straw, in having long ears, and in its flowering glumes remaining widely
divaricated for some days when in flower.
In 1888 Rimpau removed the young stamens from the German wheat referred
to, and pollinated the stigmas with pollen from a long-eared rye. Four
sound grains were obtained, looking like wheat-grains.
The history of one of these grains was as follows: In 1889 it yielded
ears which were peculiarly narrow and long, and its stalks were also
much longer than the wheat: the flowers remained exposed, with widely
open paleae, for several days, and the grains were very peculiar, though
wheat-like.
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