Combineability of high essential oil content and small fruit size in bitter fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill. ssp. vulgare var. vulgare) by crossing

摘要

The combination of small fruits and high essential oil content of the fruits is an important aim in fennel breeding because the industry needs primarily fennel with small fruits for tea bag production. Furthermore, the pattern and content of important constituent, must comply with the requirements of the European pharmacopoeia (PhEur). The aim of the project was the investigation of the feasibility of the combination of the traits " small fruit" and "high essential oil content" by crossing of appropriate donors. T donors (mother/father) had the following characteristics: thousand seed weight (TSW, 10.8/3. 6; essential oil content of the fruits (%, v/w) 15.5/6.4. The crossing was conduct in the green house by manual emasculation and transfer of the pollen by a brush wi subsequent isolation of the pollinated flowers. The F_2 seeds were generated by isolat flowering and selfpollination of the F, plants. The populations (P,, P_2, F_1, F_2) underwe, a performance test in a field experiment. The comparison of the frequency distributi of the fruit size and the essential oil content of the investigated populations revealed multimodal distribution. Hence a quantitative inheritance of both traits can be assum Obviously there exist no restrictions to combine both traits due to the absence of a cl correlation between essential oil content and TSW.