Principles of Plant Breeding

Maintenance and transfer of apomixes

• Once an apomict plant is detected its inheritance should promptly be studied by crossing a half or few flowers with the pollen obtained from normal plants and going through the segregation pattern in F2 and onward generations.
• The remaining flowers may thoroughly be checked and seeds collected on maturity. The true nature of such plants would become distinct only after progeny tests.
• A true apomictic plant will automatically produce mother apomictic progenies which can be maintained without difficulty.With regard to transfer of apomixis, substantial evidence is available for the hybrid origin of many of the apomicts. Nevertheless, there is no evidence at all the hybridization by itself can induce apomixis (Stebbins, 1950).
• Situation is further aggravated by the unstable nature of apomicts since there is every likelihood of thebreaking down of interacting gene complexes conditioning apomixis, as stated earlier.Therefore, possibilities of introducing apomixis in non-apomicts are the least but not totally absent.