Abstract

An interesting phenomenon of proliferation of a sorghum earhead was observed in the summer season of 1940 in a seed multiplication plot of an yellow grain sorghum strain (A. S. 809). While removing rogues at the flowering time, one earhead was observed to have rather longer spikelets, though in other respects, the plant was normal. The plant was as well developed and as tall as its neighbours, and the size and shape of the earhead also appeared normal. A closer examination of the earhead re vealed that the fertile spikelets had not opened. While the spikelets of the normal plants were awned, the awns being about one centimetre in length, there was a complete suppression of the awn in the proliferated earhead. It was also observed that the spikelets in the basal regions of the earhead were reduced to scale-like structures.

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