Hybrid plants breeding process

Hybridization The production of offspring (hybrids) from genetically unlike parents, by natural processes or by human intervention (i.e., artificial selection). In plant breeding, includes the process of cross-breeding two different varieties to produce hybrid plants. If the hybrid is more fit than either parent the condition is called hybrid vigor (or heterosis). Hybrid offspring may result from gene flow between domesticated crops and wild relatives. 

Most readers are familiar with this process of plant breeding and hybrid selection. It is this selection process that is responsible for most of the agriculture crops in production today and is a major factor in the increased productivity of modern agriculture. Anyone with a garden has seen the results of selective breeding. So what is the problem ... 

On the other hand, colchicine s ability to induce polyploidy can solve many important problems of plant breeding. Colchicine renders infertile hybrids fertile. For example, the maximum Fuchsia species are diploid or tetraploid. The cross between diploid and tetraploid results often in a triploid, which is mostly sterile because the process of meiosis requires the pairing of similar chromosomes and due to lack of mechanism to allow the alignment of three similar chromosomes. However, colchicine treatment produces fertile hexaploid plants. Breeding of triticale from wheat and rye shows similar problem wheat is typically tetraploid and rye is diploid, with the triploid hybrid being infertile. Here also, treatment with colchicine results in fertile hexaploid triticale. 

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