Nature 185, 60 (02 January 1960); doi:10.1038/185060a0

Conditioned Lines of Flax

A. DURRANT & H. TYSON

Department of Agricultural Botany, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.

IT was reported¹ that when different combinations of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizer treatments were applied to plants of a single inbred variety of flax the large differences in plant size produced by the treatments were transmitted unchanged to their offspring and to the second and third generations. When a small type so obtained was crossed reciprocally with a large type the effect was transmitted through the male parent almost to the same extent as through the female. When the two types were reciprocally grafted, both types were identifiable in the stock and scion. It was concluded from this that the environment had induced at least semi-permanent changes in the nucleus or cytoplasm or in both. The following summarizes some of the results from further experiments, carried out in 1958, on the second, third and fourth generations of two extreme types, NK and NPK. NK refers to the descendants of plants treated in 1954 with nitrogen and potassium, and NPK to the descendants of plants treated in 1954 with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

1. Durrant, A. , Nature, 175, 560 (1958).
2. Jinks, J. L. , Genetics, 39, 767 (1954). | ISI |
3. Hayman, B. I. , Genetics, 39, 789 (1954). | ISI |