It was helpful but as for as my case is concerned, I didn't get much of it as almost all of the disorders in the manual were diseased based or stressed based which normally affect a lot of individuals but in my case all the individuals were quite healthy except the one I shared with.
It is a branched spike which is genetically controlled but some time it express even otherwise but not to this extent when weather is highly favourable for growth during spikelet formation.
could be a spontaneous somatic mutation in the ear primordia which has made the ear develop in an irregular way. You could collect the seed from it and see how they develop. I expect them to mostly develop normally . However the mutation may have become fixed in a few of the next generation. best wishes
if this was the only plant in the field - it is unlikely to be herbicide damage . other possibility is damage by a small boring insect/nematode to the ear at very early development.
this deformation or abnormal shaping of spikes in wheat could be attributed mainly to genetic factors associated with development of the spike or to some extent due to changes in temperature prevailing during spike growth and differentiation
Gene mutation seems to be the more convincing factor for abnormal development of the ear. If this is the only such ear in the whole field, environmental factors may be ruled out.
I found this spike two years ago within my experiments. I planted its seeds last year, but all spikes were normal. It was only an environmental effect.
Last year we identified two spikes with forked heads in spring hexaploid wheat. We found these in several segregation populations, no herbicide/pesticide was applied. These deformations might arise due to high temperature during inflorescence development process. As heat stress can induce DNA damage, so possibility of mutations in floral development gene(s) cannot be ruled out.
I noticed this occurrence in rye as well. There are many possibilities for this abnormality, hebicide, high temperature or frost during the development of the spike, etc. I discard mutations because the seeds originating from these spikes gave rise to normal plants.