Contents of Chlorophylls a and b in Chlorophyll-Deficient Mutants of Sweetclover

Authors

James E. Specht, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Francis A. Haskins, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
H. J. Gorz, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

12-1975

Comments

Published in CROP SCIENCE, VOL. 15, NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1975.

Abstract

Leaf extracts from twelve chlorophyll-deficient mutants of sweetclover (Melilotus alba Desr.) were compared spectrophotometrically and chromatographically with extracts from normal plants to determine contents of chlorophylls a and b Total chlorophyll contents in cotyledons and leaves of all mutants were significantly lower than those in corresponding tissues of normal plants. Chlorophyll contents were generally higher in later emerging leaves of both normal and mutant plants. Chlorophyll alb ratios in first trifoliolate leaves were similar to normal in mutants ch₇ and ch₈, higher in mutants ch₈, ch₉, ch₁₀, and ch₁₁, and extremely high in mutant ch₄. A lower than normal alb ratio was observed in mutant ch₁₂. The four allelic ch₅ mutants were unique in that chlorophyll b was not detected in any of the tissue extracts. The ch₅ mutants appear to be only the third reported instance in higher plants of a viable mutant lacking chlorophyll b, the previously reported cases being in barley (Hordeum vulgare) and Arabidopsis thaliana.