Sunflower 'virgin births' enable accelerated crop breeding

Crop cultivation has a long history in human civilization, with records showing the cultivation of cereal plants beginning at around 8000 BC. This early plant breeding was developed primarily to provide a steady supply of food.

Plants have a life cycle split between two multicellular stages: a haploid stage—with cells containing one set of chromosomes—and a diploid stage—with cells containing two sets of chromosomes. The haploid stage is the gamete-producing gametophyte, and the diploid stage is the spore-producing sporophyte.

Overview

Trihybrid Crosses
Some of Mendel’s crosses examined three pairs of contrasting characteristics. Such a cross is called a trihybrid cross. A trihybrid cross is a combination of three individual monohybrid crosses. For example, plant height (tall vs. short), seed shape (round vs. wrinkled), and seed color (yellow vs. green).
The F1 generation plants of a trihybrid cross are heterozygous for all three traits and produce eight gametes. Upon self-fertilization, these gametes have an equal...

Overview

Plant tissue culture is widely used in both primary and applied science. Applications range from plant development studies to functional gene studies, crop improvement, commercial micropropagation, virus elimination, and conservation of rare species.