CRYPTIC POLYMORPHISM OF SEX EXPRESSION IN CUMIN (CUMINUM CYMINUM, L.)

A crude natural population collected from Aswan was cultivated in two localities differing in the climatic and edapic environment, with the biotical sublocal environment being spaced through water regim to ellucidate the genotype-environmental interaction. Cumin plants had exposed complete absence of hernaphroditic sex expression due to increasing temperature. Metaembryonic with hard endocarp and mucillageneous matrix structures, free of essential oil vitae were developed, while the floral parts remained intactly without development in the cremocarp. In order to select stable and permanent fertile plants, selection stress was practiced on basis of critical regim (8 days irrigation interval). Such plants under converged environment possessed a fitness value of 0.28 and a lack of scale of 11.28 relative to the oscillated environments. The path compensation between yield facets was always similar in the tow environment, including fruit yield and perfection ratio (Y/D), but negative path estimates were computed for converged environments between perfection ratio and either biological yield or dry matter, and exhibited developmental plasticity. Heritability estimates for homostasis were highly significant, but yield characters were responsible only for 27.95% of variation in the edaphically hardened population. A hundred progrenies group of such population were cultivated after the time the plants, not seeds, might be prior to vernalization to assure their differential canalization to male sex. Cryptic polymorphism in hermaphroditic sex expression was declared at differential degrees under IAA treatment in the rosette stage, where 40 progenies showed 75.42% fertile plants with expected genetic advance of 95.95% in the next generation. The genetic consequences of the auxin and the multiple regression equation at growth to fertility was assesses with 40.13% ultimate determination.