Genetic inheritance of flower colour pattern and governing gene action in segregating population of pansy

Abstract

Viola wittrokiana (Pansy) is most popularly used garden and landscaping plant, due to its numerous bloom colors, long blossoming season (mid-autumn to late spring), and endurance to freezing temperatures. In addition to retaining other significant vegetative and reproductive properties of the crop, the breeding programs of floricultural crops place a strong emphasis on introducing color variety to the existing pool. The current study was conducted at department of Floriculture and Landscaping, Punjab Agricultural University-India. Experimental plant material was consisted of four inbred line of pansy viz., Pa-11-1-3-7,Pa-24-4, Pa-64-1-5-14 and Pa-63-1-7-25 were crossed to obtain two cross combinations. The results suggested that, a lot of genetic variability was existence in flower colour pattern and there were involvement of two or more genes but  they were not interacting with each other which gave raised to several modifications of the typical dihybrid (9:3:3:1) F₂ ratio into several gene interactions. In the Pa-11-1-3-7 and Pa-24-4 cross ‘V’ gene was mask the effect of gene ‘W’ and ‘w’ and the interactions was inhibitory gene action (13:3).  The cross Pa-64-1-5-14 and Pa-63-1-7-25 were reported complementary gene action (9:7) and gene ‘V’ was epistatic to gene P/p. It was concluded that inheritance of flower colour was not a simple trait, many different kind of gene interaction were emergent with involvement of different kind of alleles for this particular trait.