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CORESTA Meeting, Agronomy/Phytopathology, Krakow, 2007, AP 06

Study on decreasing nicotine conversion in Chinese Burley hybrid through genetic improvement

SHI Hongzhi; LI Jinping; LI Zongping; BUSH L.P.; WANG Changjun; LIU Guoshun
Henan Agricultural University, National Tobacco Cultivate Physiology and Biochemistry Research Centre, Zhengzhou, China.

The study was conducted, through early identification and selection, to investigate the effect of selecting parents of Eyan1 for nicotine conversion and to compare the effects on reducing converters, decreasing tobacco specific nitrosamine and increasing flavour quality in improved hybrids, LC-1 and LC-2, with the regular hybrid, which has a high proportion of converters in the population. Through three generation systemic selections, the proportion of converters in the population of B21 reduced to 0.0% to 0.5% from 70.7% in the original population, and for B37, reduced also to the same proportion from 10.9%. The proportions of total converters in the two improved hybrids were 5.0% and 11.6%, respectively, 9 and 4 times lower than the regular hybrid, which had the proportion of 45.0%. The percent nicotine conversions of the two improved hybrids in the bulk samples were 2.14% and 3.13%, respectively, 4 and 2.4 times lower than the contract, which had 10.65%. The total TSNA contents in the two improved hybrids decreased 86.7% and 102.6% compared with the regular hybrid, and the difference was mainly caused by NNN reduction, the percent decreases were 186.9% and 155.5%, respectively. Improved hybrids had better tobacco flavour quality than the regular hybrid, with increased Burley style, enhanced aroma quality and quantity, and decreased offensive odour. The improved hybrids had better alkaloid composition, higher flavour quality and lower harm, therefore had high value of utilization in Burley tobacco production.