Development of breeding valuable biotypes in red beet with the use of steckling culture

The long period of time needed for production of homozygous ms-and mf-lines in biennial crop is a problem in development of heterotic hybrids in red beet. The use of steckling culture and protected cultivation technology are the suitable methods to speed up the development of breeding lines. However, the relationship between exhibition of CMS trait in seed plants and horticulturally valuable traits of steckling is very important aim of the study to be considered. The study was performed in 2012-2014. The red beet inbreeding lines (I2-I5), obtained through steckling culture in low-volume technology under protected cultivation condition were used as a plant material for the study. The generations that were obtained were from cultivar population ‘Nezhnost’ and a hybrid population of foreign origin. As a result, it was shown that one of crite-rions of indirect selection of ms-form in inbreeding generation may be the fast-maturity of stecklings that determined their yield weight at harvesting. The average weight of steckling belonging to sterile plants in progenies of different inbreeding generations, not depending on the time of harvesting was higher than in fertile plants. Therefore, probability to select the valuable ms-forms among groups of fast-maturing plants with greater weight of steckling was higher. The selection of stecklings from smaller size groups of middle maturing and late maturing inbreeding progenies is required to develop valuable mf-lines with high ability for fertility maintaining.