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Natural Sterility Maintainer and Fertility Restorer Mutants in Tift 23A₁ Cytoplasmic Male-sterile Pearl Millet, Pennisetum typhoides, (Burm.) Stapf & Hubb¹

Fertile sectors discovered in heads of cytoplasmic malesterile ‘Tift 23A₁’ pearl millet, Pennisetum typhoides (Burm.) Stapf and C. E. Hubb., were shown to result from the occurrence of a dominant fertility restorer mutation or from apparent mutation of the sterile (A₁) to normal (N) cytoplasm. Several male sterile plants with one or more completely fertile heads and five plants with all heads fertile (the latter heterozygous for the restorer gene) could also have arisen by mutations occurring earlier in their embryonic development. The environmental "breakdown" observed in one plant produced pollen that maintained the sterility of Tift 23A₁ just as pollen of ‘Tift 23B.’ The occurrence of fertility restorer mutants in Tift 23A₁ snggests that mutant genes for fertility restoration may be found in large populations of cytoplasmic male sterile plants of other species.

Key Words: Environmental-sterility-breakdown • Fertile-head-sectors

² Research Geneticist, Plant Science Research Division, Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Georgia, College of Agriculture Experiment Station, Coastal Plain Station, Tifton, Georgia 31794.

Received for publication July 23, 1971.