Department of Plant Breeding, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
The pollen mother cells of plants belonging to the Co, G1 C2, C3, C4 and C5 generations of induced tetraploid in pearl millet were analyzed. It was found that on selfing a small proportion of plants reverted to their diploid condition upto C3 generation. On crossing tetraploid plants with diploid and on open pollination, tetraploid, triploid and diploid plants were obtained. However, when diploid was used as female parent, no progeny were obtained.
A study of types and frequency of various chromosome associations at diakinesis and metaphase I stages of meiosis in microsporocytes belonging to different generations revealed that a reduction in the frequency of multivalents and increase in the frequency of bivalents has occurred. The seed setting improved through six generations but was still lower in tetraploids than in diploids.
