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Control and Inheritance of Prolificacy in Maize¹

The effects of various treatments (removal of first ears at intervals from silking, pollination control of first and second basipetal ear shoots, and hormone injections) on ear development were studied in prolific (two-eared), semi-prolific, and non-prolific single crosses of Zea mays L. Prolificacy factors were examined in certain hybrids, their component inbred lines, and derived F₂ and backcross populations using a generation means analysis. Comparisons within and among single crosses revealed that prolific plants produced significantly more grain than non-prolific plants. Availability of only one energy sink apparently placed a ceiling on the yield of non-prolific plants. Based on dates of silk emergence, the abortion of second ear shoots in semi-prolific hybrids and third ear shoots in prolific hybrids appeared to be conditional upon their lack of silking synchronization with the nearest upper ear shoot. If the silking interval was long enough, the first ear shoot of semi-prolific genotypes showed apical dominance over the second ear shoot, and the second ear shoot of prolific genotypes showed apical dominance over the third ear shoot. Genotypic responses to ear removal indicated that abortive lower silking ear shoots began to irreversibly deteriorate a few days after their successful fertilization. Prolificacy factors in F₂ and backcross populations segregated in a manner predictable from the distribution of silking intervals and the penetrance and genetic segregation inferred from parental lines and single crosses. Strong prolific potential was apparently due to a recessive genetic condition. Goodness of fit tests and genotypic responses to pollination manipulation provided no evidence for rejecting a postulated model of qualitative inheritance in which the development of nonsynchronous lower ear shoots is repressed by a diffusible plant hormone that is released from the upper ear shoots before and during anthesis. Injections of the synthetic auxin IBA into the second ear shoot of prolific hybrids at silking time caused extreme kernel abortion and poor cob development in second ears.

Key Words: Prolificacy • Apical dominance • Sensor genes • Plant hormones • Zea mays L.

² Assistant professor, Dep. of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Creighton Univ., Omaha, NE 68178; professor of genetics, North Carolina State Univ.; and research geneticist, ARS-USDA, and professor of genetics, North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC 27607, respectively.

Received for publication April 12, 1976.

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