Breaking the breeding cycle: Parthenogenesis paves the way for faster sunflower breeding
Plant Science Research WeeklyHybrid crops are key to modern agriculture, offering higher yields, improved stress resilience, and greater uniformity through heterosis (“hybrid vigor”), where offspring from two different inbred lines outperform their parents. However, producing homozygous inbred lines for stable hybrid seed production…
The PARTHENOGENESIS gene that contributes the clonal propagation through seeds in dicot dandelion (Nature Genetics)
Plant Science Research WeeklyIn plants with sexual reproduction, the male contribution (two sperm cells) is necessary to fertilize two female cells, the egg cell that gives rise to the embryo and the central cell that gives rise to the endosperm. In contrast, apomictic plants (0.1% of flowering plants spread over 120 genera) don´t…