The Japanese Journal of Genetics

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The spring and winter forms of barleys are distinguished from each other by their growing habits in the following way. When sown in spring, the spring barely attains the normal growth, while the winter barely shows overgrowth in stems and leaves and can not form ears as a rule; but when sown in autumn, the former is killed outright by winter cold, though the latter can withstand it without any damage.
In 1919 a variety of the spring barely“Siromugi”was crossed with three varieties of the winter barley“Tyûsyûsiro, ”“Teisen” and“Zairaisiro.” In these three crosses, all the F₁ plants were of the spring form, and the F₂ segregated into the spring and winter forms at the ratio of 3:1 approximately (17324:542 in actual number). Of all the F₃ families which were derived from the F₂ plants of the spring form, nearly one third (39 out of 100) bred true to the type and the remaining two thirds (61 out of 100) showed the same segergation as in the previous generation. From an F₂ plant of the winter form, there were obtained incidentally a few seeds which gave birth to the plants highly resistant to cold in the autumn sowing. The seeds born on these plants were tested in the spring sowing and all were proved to be of the winter form showing no earing.
It can be seen from these experimental results that the spring and the winter forms exibit a simple mendelian inheritance, the former being dominant over the latter. A similar mode of inheritance has been observed by COOPER in some crosses between the winter and the spring forms of wheats.
Two different forms of barleys, other than the two mentioned above, can be distinguished among the varieties cultivated in Korea and Japan proper. One of them is noticed as such that grows normally just like the spring form when sown in spring, and it can withstand cold when sown in autumn in the same way as the winter form.-This form is termed by the author as the“intermediate form.”The other form, on the contrary, shows such characteristics, that it does not form ears in the spring sowing as the winter form does and it is killed outright by cold in the autumn sowing like the spring form.-This form is named as the“pseudo-winter form.” Such forms as these might have occurred in the present experiment also, but they were not recognized because the experiment has been carried on largely with the spring sowing.

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