Evaluation of cytoplasmic effects on agronomic and seed quality traits in two doubled haploid populations of Brassica napus L.

Cytoplasmic effects have been occasionally implicated in the inheritance of several traits in oilseed rape ( Brassica napus L.), including linolenic acid concentration (18:3) in the oil. It is important that these be considered when choosing the direction of cross for producing new breeding populations. To study this phenomenon, a reciprocal cross was made between two genotypes of oilseed rape, Reston and LL09, which differed for their erucic and linolenic acid concentrations in the seed oil. Two DH populations, which were produced by microspore culture from reciprocal F-1 plants, were evaluated in the growth room for one generation and in the field at two locations in Southern Ontario in 1993 and 1994. Field notes were taken on days to flower, days to maturity, plant lodging, plant height and, seed quality traits. In the growth room study, the phenotypic distribution of 18:3 differed significantly between the two reciprocal DH populations. In the field, significant reciprocal differences between the population means were detected for 18:3, flowering date and protein content in both years and for days to maturity and oil content in 1993 only. To further study the parental lines, chloroplast (cp) and mitochondrial (mt) DNA from parental lines were isolated and subjected to RFLP and RAPD analysis. Several random primers revealed reproducible DNA polymorphism (RAPD) between the parental mt DNA. It is concluded that the direction of cross should be taken into consideration by oilseed rape breeders relying solely on doubled haploids for developing genotypes with modified seed quality traits in Brassica napus L.