Outcrossing in New Zealand wheats measured by occurrence of purple grain

Abstract The inheritance of the purple pericarp character in wheat was determined in two crosses using a derivative of the New Zealand purple cultivar ‘Konini’. In both crosses the purple colour was maternally controlled by dominant duplicate genes, with either recessive homozygote epistatic to the effects of the other gene. At the same time the purple character was used as a marker to determine outcrossing levels in 10 New Zealand cultivars, divided into two groups on the basis of the origin of their parents. The outcrossing rates ranged from 0.14 to 3.95% over the 10 cultivars, but there was no difference between the two groups. Problems of pure seed production are discussed in relation to these results.