Hafen, L. and E. C. Stevenson
The flower types of four new malesterile and three stamenless tomato mutants with gene designations are described briefly.
ms\19 Flowers appear almost normal. Stigma in most cases
protrudes beyond the anther cone. Anthers appear slightly
shrunken.
ms\20 Flowers appear normal. Anthers equal or exceed the
stigma in length.
ms\21 Flowers appear slightly smaller in size. Anthers equal
to stigma in length.
ms\22 Anthers are somewhat shrunken but of normal length.
Flowers slightly lighter in color than normal.
sl\2 Nearly stamenless. Anthers much distorted. Stigma
protrudes beyond twisted anthers. Some flowers
occasionally found which contain nearly normal anthers
with viable pollen.
sl\(?) Nearly stamenless. Only vestigial anthers normally
present. Pistil somewhat distorted. No pollen normally
produced. There is evidence that this mutant is the same
as sl reported by Bishop (TGC Report 3), but it might
develop that it is not the same as sl and it therefore is
tentatively designated as sl\(?).
cs Corollaless and stamenless. True corolla and stamens are
lacking. Stigmatic surface irregular and stigma
protrudes. Sepal-like petals and anthers present.
All mutants except cs give fruit with high seed yield when
crossed with fertile plants.
Mutants ms\19, ms\20, ms\21, ms\22, sl\2, and sl\(?) were
found in commercial plantings of the Garden State variety.
The other two mutants, ms\21 and cs, were found in fields
planted to the Rutgers variety.
Sterility in each of the seven mutants is controlled by a
different single recessive gene. It appears, however,
that there is some interaction or interrelationship
between the mutants cs, sl\2 and sl\(?), as plants showing
some degree of sterility were found in testcrosses
involving these mutants.
Tests of allelism indicate that ms\19, ms\20, ms\21 and
ms\22 are different from the eighteen male-sterile mutants
described by Rick.
Three more stamenless mutants, similar to sl\2, and
sl\(?), were found in the 1954 fall greenhouse tomato
crop. Crosses have been made in order to determine the
mode of inheritance of sterility in each case. Testcrosses
will be made to see if any of them are identical to
previously described stamenless mutants.