Anther culture - An Overview

Anther culture

• The production of haploid plants from anthers or microspores can be facilitated by the anther culture.

• This technique has been used for the production of haploid plantlets in a number of plant species including wheat,  barley, maize, rice, Potato ,tobacco etc.

• The haploid plantlets have good use due to its homozygous nature in the field of plant breeding.

• Haploid also serves as good experimental material for mutation because mutations are immediately expressed and are not masked by the dominance.

• Some methods of obtaining haploid in crop species include anther culture, ovule culture, embryo sac culture.

• Another method of bulbosum technique has been used in barley species like Hordeum bulbosum and Hordeum vulgare.

• In recent years, scientists have produced approximately eighty varieties of rice through anther culture.

• A pure line maize was obtained from anther culture with character disease resistance of one parent and ear ,kernel morphology of another parent.

• Anther culture technique was employed in the improvement of sugarcane with a character's tall stem and high sugar content.

• Anther derived doubled haploid in barley found to be superior with respect to multigenic characters including mildew resistance to barley yellow mosaic virus, resistance lodging and productivity.