INHERITANCE OF MORPHINE CONTENT IN POPPIES (PAPAVER-SOMNIFERUM L)

The experiment was carried out at the Experiment Station of Godollo University of Agricultural Sciences during 1992-1993. F1 generation from a diallel cross of five diverse Papaver somniferum genotypes and cultivars was evaluated for morphine content and for some morphological characters of poppy-capsule. General and specific combining ability was studied by the methodology of Griffing. Genetic components were calculated according to Hayman method. Graphical analysis of variance and covariance was done by Jinks-Hayman method. In spite of the parental lines showed quite big differences in morphine content (from 3.81 parts per thousand to 8.88 parts per thousand) the mean of F1 generation did not show higher value moreover the variance of F1 generation decreased compared to variance of the five parents (Table 1.) It is probably due to the more uniform distribution of genes in F1 and lack of heterosis. Results of analysis of combining ability showed that the variance of general combining ability (GCA) was significant at the 0.05 level of probability on the contrary the variance of specific combining ability (SCA). Although the reciprocal effect was also significant, its proportion was much lower compared to that of GCA. This indicated that the additive genetic effect is the most important in the genetic control of morphine content. The correlation between morphine content of parents and GCA effect values of parents is quite high (r=0.96). This provides a good basis for stable inheritance of morphine content. The maximum value of heritability in narrow-sense is 0.76 calculated from components of genetic variance. The W-V graph supported that the additive genetical effect plays a great parts in the inheritance of morphine content (Fig. 1.). The points of parents, except for parent no. 5., are located equally along the regression line according to their order of morphin content. The parents contained the most dominant genes are nearest to the origin. The coefficient of correlation between the parental order of dominance and parental value of morphine content was r= -0.47. This means that parents containing the most increasing genes contain the most dominant genes as well. Variation due to additive effect was 3.42 and due to dominance effect was 0.95. Mean degree of dominance was 0.53. The morphine content showed correlation only with the capsule width (r= -0.49) in characters of capsule investigated.