Successful crop stand establishment is critical to realize high yield potential, which is dependent on depth of seed placement to access soil moisture. The coleoptile determines sowing depth by its length and ability to emerge from depth. This study was conducted to assess coleoptile length among three sets of three Great Plains winter small grain cereals—wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and triticale (X triticosecale Wittm.)—and to evaluate the effect of the Rht-B1b dwarfing allele on coleoptile length in wheat and triticale. Fifty seeds of each genotype were sown in wet germination paper in two replications utilizing a randomized complete block design, which were placed in dark growth chambers at 25°C. Measurements were conducted after 7 d, and analysis of variance and comparison of least square means for coleoptile length among and within each set of genotypes were performed in Statistix 8.1 software using Fisher’s protected least significance difference at the α = 0.05 significance level. Results revealed that triticale had the longest coleoptiles, which were significantly longer (P < 0.05) than those measured in both barley and wheat. Additionally, significant variation in coleoptile length (P < 0.05) was also found within each set of wheat (3.52–6.41 cm), barley (4.32–6.63 cm) and triticale (4.05–6.92 cm) genotypes, respectively. These findings confirm other reports that the presence of the Rht-B1b allele was pleiotropic for coleoptile length, but development of semi-dwarf wheats with longer coleoptiles is possible if breeders deploy concurrent selection strategies.

成功建立农作物林分对于实现高产潜力至关重要，这取决于种子播种深度以获取土壤水分。胚芽鞘的长度和播种深度决定了播种深度。这项研究旨在评估三种大平原冬季小谷物（小麦（Triticum aestivum L.），大麦（Hordeum vulgare L.）和小黑麦（X triticosecale Wittm。）的三组中胚芽鞘的长度，并评估其效果。该RHT-B1b矮秆基因在小麦和黑小麦中胚芽鞘长度上的矮等位基因。使用随机完整块设计，将每种基因型的50个种子播种在湿的发芽纸中，进行两次复制，将其放置在25°C的黑暗生长室中。在7天后进行测量，在Statistix 8.1软件中使用α  = 0.05显着水平的Fisher最小显着性差异，在Statistix 8.1软件中进行方差分析和胚芽鞘长度的最小二乘均值比较。结果表明，黑小麦的胚芽鞘最长， 比大麦和小麦的胚芽鞘长得多（P <0.05）。此外，胚芽鞘长度的显着变化（P 在每套小麦（3.52-6.41厘米），大麦（4.32-6.63厘米）和黑小麦（4.05-6.92厘米）基因型中也分别发现了<0.05）。这些发现证实了其他报道，即对于胚芽鞘长度而言，Rht-B1b等位基因的存在是多效性的，但是如果育种者采用同步选择策略，则具有更长胚芽鞘的半矮小麦的发育是可能的。