Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Doubled Haploid Production by Interspecific Crosses with Imperata cylindrica

The development of doubled haploid (DH) lines in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) through interspecific hybridization with Imperata cylindrica represents a significant advancement in wheat breeding. This methodology exploits the intrinsic mechanism of chromosomal elimination during wide hybridization, wherein the chromosomes of I. cylindrica are selectively eliminated, resulting in the formation of haploid wheat embryos. These embryos are cultured, and haploid plants are subsequently subjected to colchicine treatment to induce chromosome doubling, thereby yielding fully homozygous DH plants within a single generational cycle. The I. cylindrica-mediated protocol confers several advantages over wheat × maize DH induction technique, including augmented efficiency, enhanced pollen viability, and the natural synchronization of I. cylindrica and wheat anthesis. This technique has demonstrated exceptional efficacy not only in bread wheat but also in triticale × wheat and wheat × rye derivatives, where alternative methodologies of DH induction have proven suboptimal. The resultant DH plants are indispensable for expediting genetic enhancement programs, facilitating the rapid development of novel wheat cultivars with superior traits such as increased yield, disease resistance, and abiotic stress tolerance. This chapter underscores the protocol of I. cylindrica-mediated doubled haploidy in wheat breeding, emphasizing its utility in the rapid generation of genetically uniform lines, which are essential for both basic genomic research and applied breeding programs.