Since the beginning of agricultural production, there has been a continuous effort to grow more and better quality food to feed ever increasing popula­ tions. Both improved cultural practices and improved crop plants have al­ lowed us to divert more human resources to non-agricultural activities while still increasing agricultural production. Malthusian population predictions continue to alarm agricultural researchers, especially plant breeders, to seek new technologies that will continue to allow us to produce more and better food by fewer people on less land. Both improvement of existing cultivars and development of new high-yielding cultivars are common goals for breeders of all crops. In vitro haploid production is among the new technologies that show great promise toward the goal of increasing crop yields by making similar germplasm available for many crops that was used to implement one of the greatest plant breeding success stories of this century, i. e. , the development of hybrid maize by crosses of inbred lines. One of the main applications of anther culture has been to produce diploid homozygous pure lines in a single generation, thus saving many generations of backcrossing to reach homozygosity by traditional means or in crops where self-pollination is not possible. Because doubled haploids are equivalent to inbred lines, their value has been appreciated by plant breeders for decades. The search for natural haploids and methods to induce them has been ongoing since the beginning of the 20th century.

Inhalt

Section 1: 1. Genetic stability of microspore derived doubled haploids; S.J. Louge. 2. Transformation of pollen and microspores - a review; W. A. Harwood, et al. 3. Gametoclonal variation in crop improvement; B. Huang. 4. Breadmaking quality of doubled haploid lines of wheat; Z. Bedo, et al. 5. DNA amplification of doubled haploids of Nicotiana; S.M. Reed. 6. RFLP-mapping the haploid genome of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.); A. Graner. 7. Mutation and selection for improved oil and meal quality in Brassica napus utilizing microspore culture; L. Kott, et al. 8. Genetics of green plant regeneration from anther culture in cereals; H. Zhou. 9. Segregation distortion in androgenic plants; N. Foisset, R. Delourme. 10. Chromosome engineering in the triticeae using pollen derived plants; Hu Han. 11. Self incompatibility and pollen rejection in angiosperms; A. McCubbin, T.H. Kao. 12. Statistical models for the detection of genes controlling quantitative trait loci expression; E.A. Carbonell, M.J. Asins. 13. Haploid protoplasts: pollen protoplasts; I. Tanaka. 14. Somatic-gameto protoplast fusion; M.K. Davey. 15. The potentials of using dihaploid/diploid genotypes in breeding potato by somatic hybridization; S. Waara. 16. Cryopreservation of androgenics in vitro cultured of cereals; H. Lorz. 17. Artificial seeds from microspore derived embryos of cereals; S.K. Datta. 18. Future prospects for crop improvement through anther and microspore culture; K.N. Kao. Section 2: 19. Genetic transformation of Petunia via pollen; D. Hess. 20. Genetic transformation of wheat via pollen; D. Hess. 21. Genetic transformation of rice from protoplasts of haploid origin; S.K. Datta.