Class 1 Mutants

Member lines: bm-10, bm-25

Gross epicuticular wax phenotype: Sparse bloom

Epicuticular wax morphology:

(see Jenks et al., 1992 and scanning electron micrograph to the right of this table)

tissue	cork-silica cell associated wax	cuticle wax
leaf sheath (abaxial surface)	long filaments	plates
leaf blade (abaxial surface)	short filaments	thin plates

Linkage group: h8 (bm-10) and h9 (bm-25)

Genotype: BmBmh8h8 (bm-10), BmBmh9h9 (bm-25)

Epicuticular wax load:

(data from Agronomy Farm trial 1992)

line	abaxial leaf sheath	leaf blade
bm-10	2.63 +/- 0.28	1.26 +/- 0.17
bm-25	2.17 +/- 0.42	1.13 +/- 0.08

Leaf sheath epicuticular wax chemistry:

Leaf sheath epicuticular wax free fatty acids

FFA homologue	% total FFAs	load (mg/cm2)
C16	1.18	0.26
C18	0.94	0.20
C20	0.06	0.01
C22	0.21	0.04
C24	0.37	0.08
C26	0.32	0.07
C28	71.1	15.0
C30	25.6	5.37
C32	0.22	0.05
total	100	21.1

Chemically, epicuticular wax is very similar to wildtype. Free fatty acids make up 88% of leaf sheath wax.

Agronomic characters:

line	yield without drought (kg/ha)	yield in drought (kg/ha)
bm-25	4461	900

The waxy bloom on bm-10 shows a banding pattern (see photo at right) in most environments. This line also has wrinkled leaves and produces no basal tillers.

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