Imprinted genes are involved in many aspects of development in mammals, plants, and perhaps birds and may play a role in growth and carcass composition of slaughter animals. In the presence of genomic imprinting the expression and, consequently, the effect on the phenotype of maternal and paternal alleles are different. For genetic evaluation genomic imprinting can be accounted for by incorporating 2 additive genetic effects per animal; the first corresponds to a paternal and the second to a maternal expression pattern of imprinted genes. This model holds whatever the mode of imprinting may be: paternal or maternal, full or partial, or any combination thereof. A set of slaughter data from 65,233 German Simmental fattening bulls was analyzed with respect to the relative importance of the genetic imprinting variance. Besides slaughter weight, net daily BW gain, and killing out percentage, there were 22 other traits describing the carcass composition. The latter traits were evaluated by automatic video-imaging devices and were composed of weights of valuable cuts as well as fat and meatiness grade. The number of ancestors in the pedigree was 356,880. Genomic imprinting significantly contributed to the genetic variance of 10 traits, with estimated proportions between 8 and 25% of the total additive genetic variance. For 6 of these traits, the maternal contribution to the imprinting variance was larger than the paternal, whereas for all other traits the reverse was true. Fat grade only showed a paternal contribution to the imprinting variance. Estimates of animal model heritabilities of automatic video-imaging-recorded carcass traits ranged between 20 and 30%.

Extracted alfalfa saponins and leaf meal extracts from alfalfa influenced the growth rate of some fungi more than others. Of seven fungi whose growth rate was studied on media to which different concentrations of extracted alfalfa saponins or Leeben, a commercial saponin, were added, only Trichoderma viride was fonnd highly sensitive at concentrations below 1 mg of saponin per milliliter of medium.A correlation coefficient of —0.952** was found between the growth of T. viride on 2% potato‐dextrose‐agar containing leaf meal extracts from 36 F1 and S1 plant families and saponin percentage. This, together with a correlation coefficient of —0.922** between the growth of T. viride on media containing leaf meal extracts from individual alfalfa plants and saponin percentage, suggests the use of T. viride for bioassays for saponins.

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A study of a collection of 903 varieties of safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) for the mean yield per plant and the three major yield components, number of heads per plant, number of seeds per head, and seed weight, revealed marked differences in the potential of lines from different origins. Because of the mutual compensation of the yield components, the differences in yield were not as marked as they were for the components. The collection contains an abundance of genetic variability which is available for breeding higher‐yielding safflower varieties. There were regional differences in the components due to human and/or natural selection.A multiple stepwise regression analysis showed that the most important yield component was the number of heads per plant. The number of seeds per head was of little importance, except for lines from Iran. Seed weight had no effect on yield per plant, except for a minor influence in the Iranian lines. The number of heads per plant had negative but negligible correlations with oil content. Yield per plant was not correlated with season length or oil content. Since the findings were obtained under spaced nursery conditions, they are not necessarily applicable directly to dense field stands.

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) inbred lines ‘HA 89,’ ‘HA 124,’ and ‘P‐21 VRI’ and their Fl hybrids were highly resistant to Verticillium wilt under field conditions. Segregation ratios from testcross and F2 populations indicated the presence of a single dominant gene for resistance in each line. Intercrosses among the resistant lines showed that the same gene conditioned resistance in the three lines.