Principles of Plant Breeding (2+1)

Interspecific Hybridization

• Interspecific crossing has a unique place in the improvement of all the crop plants because wild and related species of cultivated plants possess several characters which are lacking in cultivated crops.
• Interspecific hybridization in sexually propagated crop faces a problem of sterility and poor seed set due to cytological difference between species.
  
• The asexual multiplication of plants however makes it easy to successfully adopt interspecific hybridization because any plant combining characters of two or more species can be multiplied in spite of its sterility and seed setting abnormalities. E.g: Sugarcane.