Abstract
The status of Triticum boeoticum subsp. aegilopoides (Link) Schiem. is somehow confusing, suggesting a need to verify whether this subspecies is a truly wild or a feral form. After reviewing some rather inaccessible older literature, a half-diallel of three pure einkorn lines (truly wild, domesticated and aegilopoides) was performed. The F2 and F3 analyses of brittleness and microscope-based studies of the abscission scars on rachis fragments were combined with extant genome maps. Two QTL segregated in the cross domesticated × wild (one on chromosome 4 and one on chromosome 7), but only one segregated in the cross feral × wild (same as before on chromosome 7), indicating that the feral form carried a wild (or equivalent) allele. Within the cross domesticated × feral, quantitative segregation occurred and could be caused by some neat abscission scars, but without the typical ‘fish-mouth-like’ appearance of the truly wild form. We suggest that aegilopoides and domesticated einkorn emerged in patches of semi-brittle mutants in the Karacadag Mountains and were collected and maintained by humans. When agriculture moved from South-East Turkey into Western Turkey and later into the Balkans, aegilopoides became the feral form we know today, characterized by a semi-brittle rachis that makes it less wild compared to the truly wild Triticum boeoticum subsp. thaoudar (Reut. ex Hausskn.) Grossh.
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