Class 2 Mutants

Member lines: bm-1, bm-5, bm-11, bm-19, bm-32, bm-34

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)	sparse filaments	thin plates

Linkage group: h5 (bm-1), h6 (bm-5), h7 (bm-11, bm-19, bm-32), h13 (bm-34)

Genotype: BmBmh5h5 (bm-1), BmBmh6h6 (bm-5), BmBmh7h7 (bm-11, bm-19, bm-32), BmBmh13h13 (bm-34)

Epicuticular wax load:

(data from Agronomy Farm trial 1992)

line	abaxial leaf sheath	leaf blade
bm-1	1.21 +/- 0.27	1.06 +/- 0.09
bm-5	1.41 +/- 0.13	1.00 +/- 0.10
bm-11	1.72 +/- 0.22	1.24 +/- 0.07
bm-19	1.38 +/- 0.15	1.29 +/- 0.09
bm-32	1.00 +/- 0.11	1.30 +/- 0.08
bm-34	1.62 +/- 0.17	1.40 +/- 0.17

Leaf sheath epicuticular wax chemistry:

Leaf sheath epicuticular wax free fatty acids

FFA homologue	% total FFAs	load (mg/cm2)
C16	3.10	0.36
C18	2.14	0.25
C20	0.13	0.01
C22	0.37	0.05
C24	0.43	0.05
C26	0.35	0.04
C28	67.0	8.07
C30	26.0	3.14
C32	0.41	0.05
total	100	12.0

These lines have an epicuticular wax containing an average of 86% free fatty acids on leaf sheaths.

Agronomic characters:

line	yield without drought (kg/ha)	yield in drought (kg/ha)
bm-11	5320	1524
bm-19	4167	1136
bm-32	2959	596

Bm-11 (see photo at right), bm-19, bm-32 and bm-34 show a banding pattern in their waxy bloom in certain environments.

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