Analysis of Gene Effect on Four Characters of Immature Embryo Culture in Maize

This study was to find the regularity in the hereditary variation for the main culturing characters of the immature embryo culture in maize. Two kinds of inbred-line, R18-599 (red) with very excellent embryo culturing capacity and R15 with very poor embryo culturing capacity, were used as P1 and P2 for obtaining six generations. By culturing immature embryos of the six generations, four culturing characters, namely embryonic callus induction efficiency, nonembryonic callus induction efficiency, cloning ability of the embryonic callus, and number of regenerating plants, were analyzed using the general mean analysis and generation joint analysis. Results showed that the embryonic callus induction efficiency accorded with two major additive-dominance-epistatic genes and polygene-mixed additive-dominance-epistatic inheritance model. The induction efficiency of the nonembryonic callus accorded with two major additive-dominance-epistatic genes. The number of regenerating plants accorded with one major gene and polygene-mixed additive-dominance inheritance model. The cloning ability of the embryo callus accorded with two major genes and polygene-mixed inheritance model, whereas the effect of epistatic gene on this character was identified to be different using the two methods. By comparison of the results of the two methods, generation joint analysis may not only raise experimental precision but also provide more genetic information.