A 3 hr treatment period with a 0 .2% aqueous solution of colchicine was given to one week old seedlings of inbred lines of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L .) . The surviving plants developed as mixoploids and were subsequently split down into single tillers and then classified as either diploid or tetraploid . The undoubted diploids of the treated material (C2x) were then self-pollinated and the seeds grown in the following generation (CT1) without any further treatment . In the CT1 generation comparisons were made between the C2x and the control 2x treatments within the same inbred lines, and heritable differences were found for leaf mesophyll cell plan areas and chloroplast numbers . The cell areas were significantly less in the C2x compared with the 2x treatment in four out of the five lines studied, and the chloroplasts numbers were likewise lower in two out of the five lines . In one line there was a significantly higher mean number of chloroplasts per cell in the C2x material compared with that of the 2x .
Seedlings of perennial ryegrass from several inbred lines were treated with colchicine, and from the mixoploids produced some diploid tillers were recovered. When these diploid coichicine-treated plants were compared with their isogenic untreated diploids effects on agronomic characters due to the cotchicine were discovered. These coichicineinduced changes have remained stable over seven years of vegetative growth and have now been shown to be sexually transmitted through a selfed-seed generation.
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