Homo- and heterozygous mosaic types of oleic acid content in sunflower seeds

The results of the research on a seed oleic acid gradient present both in inbred lines and hybrids of a high oleic genotype with suppressor-carrying normal lines of sunflower are presented. The oil obtained from cotyledons of the line LG27 had a higher content of oleic acid than that obtained from gemmule. The difference was about 12.7 %. The phenomenon could be called environmental homozygous increase of oleic acid content. A wide range of distribution of heterozygous Olol F1 seeds on oleic acid classes in the crosses of VK876×LG28 and VK876×K824 was observed. One half of the seeds belonged to the high oleic class (76 to 91%) and the other half varied in an intermediate class (46 to 76 %). The oleic acid content of gemmule and cotyledon was the same for the F1 seeds of the mutant class. On the contrary, a significant difference in oleic acid content was observed for the F1 seeds of the intermediate class. In this case, the cotyledon had a lower content of oleic acid than that of gemmule with a difference of about 11.6 %. This longitudinal seed gradient could be called an epigenetic heterozygous decrease in oleic acid content. The environmental homozygous change in oleic acid content is in the opposite direction to the epigenetic heterozygous variation. The portion of mosaic F1 seeds was 0.23. Only one type of mosaic heterozygous embryo was found, i.e. mutant gemmule and intermediate cotyledon.