Transmission of the capacity for regular apomictic reproduction from Tripsacum to maize

Petrov, D. F.; Belousova, N. I.; Fokina, E. S.

A 2n = 4x = 72 apomictic Tripsacum form was crossed as the paternal parent with 4x maize. The resulting hybrids (2n = 56) were male sterile and morphologically intermediate between the parents. When pollinated by 2x maize, they showed partial female fertility up to 24.5%. A study of the F1 suggested that apomixis in Tripsacum was controlled by 2 semidominant alleles of genes A and N, giving an allelic formula for Tripsacum of AAaa NNnn and for 4x maize of aaaa nnnn.