Class 14 Mutants

Member lines: bm-2, bm-6, bm-22 and bm-33

Gross epicuticular wax phenotype: Bloomless

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)	none	smooth
leaf blade (abaxial surface)	none	smooth

Linkage group: bm2 (all members of this class are allelic)

Genotype: bm2bm2HH

Epicuticular wax load:

(data from Agronomy Farm trial 1992)

line	abaxial leaf sheath	leaf blade
bm-2	0.34 +/- 0.06	0.30 +/- 0.04
bm-3	0.34 +/- 0.07	0.29 +/- 0.03
bm-22	0.30 +/- 0.04	0.31 +/- 0.04
bm-33	0.16 +/- 0.04	0.27 +/- 0.04

Leaf sheath epicuticular wax chemistry:

Leaf sheath epicuticular wax free fatty acids

FFA homologue	% total FFAs	load (mg/cm2)
C16	33.3	0.60
C18	29.5	0.52
C20	3.40	0.06
C22	3.74	0.07
C24	4.11	0.07
C26	1.35	0.02
C28	15.7	0.28
C30	8.66	0.16
C32	0.23	<.01
total	100	1.78

Class 14 mutant sheath wax contains 61% free fatty acids (FFA).

Agronomic characters:

line	yield without drought (kg/ha)	yield in drought (kg/ha)
bm-22	3931	702
bm-33	3438	497

Bm-2 and bm-6, in the P898012 background, are small weak plants.

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