INTERSPECIFIC HYBRIDIZATION AS A TOOL FOR BROADENING THE VARIABILITY OF USEFUL TRAITS IN RAPESEED (BRASSICA NAPUS L.)

Amphidiploid rapeseed (B. napus) is a very important oil plant, widely cultivated in many countries in the world. Breeding programs to obtain novel culti-vars of rapeseed with improved traits are highly desirable. Interspecific crossing is a valuable tool for widening the variability of useful traits, such as seed quality and resistance to pests and diseases. This investigation was undertaken in order to examine genetic variability of seed quality traits as well as resistance to clubroot caused by the protist Plasmodiophora brassicae. Altogether 96 hybrid lines from 4 different cross- combinations, i.e., Brassica napus male sterile MS-8 line × B. campestris ssp. sarson ‘Yellow Sarson’ (16 lines); × B. campestris ssp. pekinensis (56); × B. carinata (10) and × B. juncea (14) were under investigation. The percentage of oil in seeds of these 96 lines was tested using near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS). The composition of fatty acids was studied with gas chromatography. The resistance to clubroot was evaluated by inoculation with the spores of P. brassicae in glasshouse conditions. It was found that some lines met canola standards in oil and unsaturated fatty acids and also showed resistance higher than widely cultivated varieties of B. napus. The new hybrids obtained in the present investigation by interspecific hybridization contribute towards increasing of genetic variability and may serve as a source of useful traits for future breeding of oilseed rape.