Independent Inheritance of Erucic Acid Content and Flower Colour in the C‐Genome of Brassica napus L.

Abstract The synthetic Brassica napus L. line No7076 was obtained from a cross between yellow‐flowered and zero‐erucic turnip rape (B. campestris) Sv85‐38301 and white‐flowered and high‐erucic (41.4%) B. oleracea ssp. alboglabra No6510. This synthetic B. napus is pale‐flowered and has an average erucic acid content of 25.8 %. It was crossed with the yellow‐flowered and zero‐erucic B. napus line SvS4‐2S053 and segregation of the erucic acid content and flower colour was studied in F1 and F2 generations. The high erucic acid content was controlled by a single gene in the C‐genome and was additively inherited. Strong evidence was obtained in support of independent segregation of the erucic‐arid content and the flower colour characters controlled by the C‐genome of B. napus.