Semi-dominant genes confer additive tolerance to metribuzin in narrow-leafed lupin (Lupinus angustifolius L.) mutants

Narrow-leafed lupin (Lupinus angustifolius L.) is a grain legume well-adapted to sandy acid soils in a Mediterranean climate. Improved metribuzin tolerance in lupin cultivars is considered essential to protect crops from herbicide damage in Australia. This paper reports on the inheritance of metribuzin tolerance in two induced mutants Tanjil-AZ-33 and Tanjil-AZ-55 over the susceptible wild type cv. Tanjil. Both mutants were highly tolerant to 800 g/ha metribuzin with no foliage damage, but cv. Tanjil died and reciprocal F₁ hybrids had intermediate tolerance with foliage damage. The F₂ populations of both crosses, Tanjil-AZ-33 × Tanjil and Tanjil-AZ-55 × Tanjil, had a segregation ratio of 1:2:1 for highly tolerant: damaged:dead plants. Progeny tests (F₃) of selected F₂ single plants confirmed that highly tolerant F₂ plants were homozygous and damaged F₂ plants were heterozygous. Clearly a single semi-dominant gene conferred metribuzin tolerance in both mutants. An allelism test revealed that the two mutants had two non-allelic tolerance genes with F₂ plants segregating in a 15:1 ratio for survival and death at 800 g/ha metribuzin. The tolerance gene in Tanjil-AZ-33 was designated as Mt3 and the gene in Tanjil-AZ-55 as Mt5. At 4,000 g/ha metribuzin, 1/16 of F₂ plants from the cross between the two mutants had no herbicide damage, suggesting the additive effects of the two tolerance genes, whilst the rest were damaged or dead. Combining these two tolerance genes, Mt3 and Mt5, increased tolerance further by approximately five-fold.