| Popis: |
In the scenario of catastrophic climatic change, burgeoning population, reduction in cultivable land due to urbanization and continuously changing abiotic as well as biotic stresses, wheat production is facing a continuous threat for reduction. Scientific community worldwide has joined hands to tackle this problem with the integration of novel technologies in cropping system. Among such technologies, doubled haploid (DH) production has revolutionized wheat cultivation with far-reaching implications in accelerating the crop improvement programmes with enhanced precision. It has been a boon for the wheat breeders to discover chromosome elimination—a dynamic process occurring during wide hybridization in wheat with various genera of Poaceae. Earlier thought to be an obstacle in successful wide hybridization, it has now become a perfect tool for haploid induction in wheat. Since the invention of bulbosum approach, scientists have exploited other potential systems like wheat × maize and wheat × Imperata cylindrica leading to selective chromosome elimination. Recently, I. cylindrica-mediated approach has emerged as an efficient alternative to the widely used maize-mediated system as it enjoys the benefits of natural coincidence for flowering with that of wheat, abundant pollen supply for longer span, pollen with greater longevity and inducing significantly higher frequency of doubled haploids from wheat as well as triticale × wheat and wheat × rye derivatives. The I. cylindrica-mediated system has evinced appreciable performance for the triticale × wheat derivatives where maize-mediated system remained unsuccessful. Chromosome elimination-mediated DH breeding has emerged as a milestone for the acceleration of various wheat genetic upgradation programmes. |
