Lines of corn L-70/9 and B-73 RfC are carrying the gene Rf4 on the same loci

Abstract

The inheritance of the fertility restoration in cms-C in maize is very complex, and there are many contradictory results in the literature. There is an indication that there are different parallel or duplicated systems some of which include at least three complementary dominant genes - Rf4, Rf5, Rf6. Also, there is an indication of the duplication of the gene Rf4, which was tested in this work. We used three lines of different genetic constitution regarding Rf genes (B-73Bbms, L-70/9 and B-73cmsC-RfC) and produced different genotypes, combinations of genotypes and generations between them for the screening of fertility/sterility. The results of this work are negative, i.e. we did not prove the duplication of the Rf4 gene. This may be because of the relatively small number of lines that we have used (only three), or because there really is no duplication of the investigated gene. .

Keywords

• maize
• cms-C
• duplication
• Rf4