Production of Haploid Wheat via Maize Pollination

One of the ways of haploid production is a cross between wheat and maize. Recently success has been achieved in this method, leading to the production of zygotes; these zygotes generally undergo elimination of maize chromosomes and thus lead to production of wheat haploid plant. The purpose of this study was to develop an efficient method of haploid production via maize pollination in short duration bread and durum wheat cultivars grown in Iran and India. Pollination of agronomically superior varieties of six hexaploid wheat (2n=2x=42): Golestan, Mahdavi MACS-2496, HD-2189, NIAW-34, NI-5439 and four tetraploid wheat (2n=2x=28): MACS-9, MACS-2846, MACS-1967, Raj-1555 with pollen from maize cultivar resulted in haploid embryos by post pollination treatment with four concentration of dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and silver nitrate (AgNO3). Treatment with 3 mgL?1 2,4-D plus (120-180 mgL?1 AgNO3) gave highest frequency of haploid embryos and haploid plants. In this study haploid embryos and haploid plants were produced from all of the ten genotypes, but frequency of haploid embryos (7.45%) and haploid plants (1.06%) in hexaploid wheat was more than haploid embryos (6.16%) and haploid plants (0.83%) in tetraploid wheat. We produced a total of 368 mature haploid plants.