Efficiency of anther culture technique in the production of wheat double haploids

Abstract

The objective of the study was to investigate efficiency of anther culture in the production of spontaneous double haploids from randomly selected heterozygous genotypes of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Anthers of 20 F1 wheat combinations were grown in vitro on a modified Potato-2 medium. All of the examined genotypes have shown the ability to produce pollen calluses as well as to regenerate green plants. On average for the whole experiment material, 47.2 calluses were produced per 100 cultured anthers. The green plant regeneration ranged from 0.8 to 13.4 green plants per spike, with an overall mean of 5.8. From the total of 582 regenerated green plants, 47.9% (279) were spontaneous double haploids. The final average yield from the study was 2.8 double haploids per spike.