Abstract: Four patchs of fertile R₁ generations were obtained from somaclones initiated from non-differentiated anther calli of a new cultivar of winter wheat-Shi 5144. The observation results in the field showed that the variation occured in 1 plant of R₂ generation, and the variation frequency was 25%.86 progenies of this variant were observed. Among the three major agronomic characters, the plant height showed the highest variation frequency (67.44%), followed by 1000-grain-weight and the number of spikes per plant, which were 50.00% and 47.67%, respectively. Variation was also observed in other characters including protein content in seed,grain colour and type, spike shape. The variation occured not only within the plant lines but also within the spike lines. Only awn did not change among the characters investigated.

Key words: Winter wheat, Anther callus, Somaclone variation