Haploid production technology in wheat and some selected higher plants

Haploid plants are very important in various realms of research disciplines such as plant biotechnology, molecular genetics and traditional plant breeding. They provide useful information regarding recombination and genetic control of chromosomal pairing. Haploidy expedites the breeding process thereby increasing the crop yield. Researchers have been working on the haploidy approach for more than half a century. Some crops have shown interesting results in producing haploid cultivars include bread wheat and other crops such as maize, oat and onion. This technique also has useful applications in genetic transformation for generating polyploidy wheat. Wheat cultivars developed from doubled haploid from both anther-culture and maize induction systems have been released for cultivation in all the major continents. Several techniques have been adapted for the production of haploid plants such as anther culture, isolated microspore culture some of which have been discussed in this review. With the ability to increase the yield of haploids in bread wheat and durum wheat, the haploidy technique may play an ever increasing role in basic cytogenetic, genetic, and genomic research as well as in applied plant breeding in several crop species in the not so distant future. This review aims to capture few of the great achievements being made in the field of haploid production technology in some selected crop/higher plant species and its implications to modern agriculture and in crop development programs.