Breeding beets

[PatrickW]

Mar 6, 2009 18:59:38 GMT -5 canadamike said:

Should end up kind of brown ;D

You're funny Michael! Is this like a Peter Principle or Murphy's Law of plant breeding? Everything tends towards brown anyway?

[raymondo]

I found some very useful explanatory information in Hybridization of Crop Plants edited by Fehr & Hadley.

There are three genes involved in colour of root, hypocotyl and petiole.

R - The R gene is multi-allelic: R, R^t, R^P, R^h, r. All the R alleles control pink/red pigmentation in root, hypocotyl and petiole. The rr combination results in green colouring.

Y - The Y gene controls yellow pigmentation but its effect is modified by the R gene. For example, rrY_ results in yellow root, hypocotyl and petioles and R_yy results in white root and red hypocotyl and so on.

P - This gene modifies both the above. The genotype P_ is needed for the other two genes to be expressed. If the genotype is recessive, pp , then it doesn't matter what's happening in the R and Y genes, neither red nor yellow colour can be expressed.

There are other genes involved in leaf vein and leaf colour.

I haven't found anything on root shape but it's useful to know what's going on colour-wise.

[grungy]

Interesting read Raymondo, please keep us up to date with your research as I find I barely have time to get to this forum once or twice a day to do my reading.