Panicles of 24 molasses grass ecotypes were used in an experiment involving: bagging before anthesis; cross-pollination and bagging; emasculation and bagging; and emasculation, cross-pollination and bagging. Emasculation was accomplished by immersing the inflorescences into warm water, four temperature levels, for 12 minutes. The breeding system was accessed by comparing the isozyme patterns of the estereases, acid phosphatases, leucine aminopeptidases and malato dehydrogenases of the parental generations with their offsprings. The high uniformity of patterns obtained in the offsprings, the identical patterns found for both the female parents and their respectives progenies and also the presence of banding patterns, characteristically shown by heterozygotes of the leucine aminopeptidase and malato dehydrogenase systems, are strong evidences for the hypothesis of apomictic reproduction in this species. In addiction, the isozymatic segregation for acid phosphatase observed in plants of CG4 and CG5 ecotypes and the detection of hybrids from CG2 x CG3 crosses, are indicating that the apomixis in molasses grass is facultative.
molasses grass; reproduction; isozyme patterns
