The observations in this paper indicate that a new chlorophyll-deficient mutation has been found in sunflower. The mutant is characterized by having a lutescens-like phenotype during the early stages. However, in later stages, the plants have a light green color and they not only reach the reproductive stage, but also give a normal seed set. The objective of this paper was to determine the mode of inheritance of this new chlorophyll-deficient mutation.

Different crosses were made between normal and mutant plants to obtain the F1, F2 and BC F1 generations. The ratio of the observed phenotypes in the different segregating progenies investigated were chi-square tested for goodness of fit and heterogeneity.

All these results suggest that this new chlorophyll-deficient mutation is controlled by a recessive nuclear gene. The symbol lgr-1 (light green-1) is proposed to designate this recessive allele.