LINKAGE OF A QUANTITATIVE AND A QUALITATIVE CHARACTER IN BARLEY

Abstract

OH the utilization of genetics in plant and animal breeding the F inheritance of quantitative characters is a most important problem, and a problem which is as yet almost wholly unsolved. The numerous experiments carried out have had rather unconclusive results. The general conclusion has been that several multiple factors are most often involved, but it has not been possible to give definite answers to the following imporlant qoestions: The evact number of factors involved, the quantitative effect of each factor in homozygous and heterozygous condition and the quantitative effect of the different combinations of the various factors. T h r unconclusive results of the experiments on quantitative characters have put them in the background of genetic interest, as an unfruitful line of research, but as they are very important, both practically and theoretically, their solution cannot in the long run be neglected. For thr vindication of genetic theory in general, it is of the utmost importance that quantitative characers can be attributed, undisputably, to Mendelian unit factors. Two lines of attack seem to offer themselves for a more effective analysis of quantitative characters: