Abstract

Chlorophyll deficiencies are a common occurrence in cereals. They have been noted in some millets, Sorghum, Eleusine coracana2, Setaria italica and Paspalum scrobiculatum. All stable varieties have attained chlorophyll efficiency of degrees, the deficiencies being elimi nated by a process of vigilant mass selection through a number of years. In dry crops where the stand is uncertain, the yield meagre and the seed rate important, no cultivator can afford to sow seed some of which would throw albino seedlings... At the Millets Breeding Station, Coimbatore, where a number of races are brought into an impact with each other, optimum conditions prevail, (especially in a protogynous crop like the pearl millet), for the coming together of factors which in isolation might not be lethal, but whose lethal pro- pensities have been activated by inadvertent association. A number of experiences in the chlorophyll deficiency of this millet have there- fore been met with. The pursuit of albinism in this protogynous crop is beset with peculiar difficulty. No useful Mendelian deductions can be drawn except on selfed material; and selfing is particularly difficult in this crop with its protruding stigmas. Nevertheless n number of plants have been selfed and this phenomenon of albinism pursued in some aspects.

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