GENETIC CONTROL OF PURPLE PLANT COLOR IN SESAME

Abstract

The exploitation of exotic genetic resources in plant breeding is necessary to enhance diversity of cultivars. Purple color is an exceptional character in sesame and monitored rarely in stems, capsules and leaves. The purple sesame is suitable for commercial production with high antioxidant capacity. For understanding of its genetic behaviour, inheritance study was carried out for four years (2008-2011) by crossing Muganli-57 (♀) and ACS 70 (♂). Muganli-57 parent had green color in canopy while ACS 70 was purple. All the plants in the F1 generation were purple colored. In F2 population, 3:1 segregation ratio showed that purple color character was controlled by a single dominant gene. F2 progenies were sown to single rows separately, either purple or green plants. The green plants in F2 were also green colored in F3 with no segregation while the purple plants obtained from F2 indicated purple and green colors in F3 with a segregation ratio of 3:1. These segregations demonstrated that purple color in sesame was under the control of a single gene and this unique color was dominant over traditional green color. This accession (ACS 70) is a valuable genetic resource by providing a unique color character in sesame. The result presenting in this study would be of importance for further improvement of high antioxidant capacity in sesame.