In Vitro Production of Haploids in Rice Through Ovary Culture

Abstract

The spontaneous occurrence of haploids in rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a rare and sporadic phenomenon. Since anther culture in rice was first successfully carried out by Niizeki and Oono (1968), technical improvements have made it easy to produce haploid pollen plants in this crop. Nevertheless, it has remained unknown whether it is possible to obtain haploids also from the female cells by the in vitro technique. At the beginning of the 1980’s, two laboratories separately reported the induction of haploid rice plants by culture of unpollinated ovaries (Asselin de Beauville 1980; Zhou and Yang 1980, 1981a). Subsequently, Kuo (1982) also obtained similar results. From that time on, a series of fundamental research has been done in order to improve the culture technique and to elucidate the origin and developmental aspects of the ovary-derived haploids (Zhou and Yang 1981b,c; Zhou et al. 1983, 1986; Tian and Yang 1983, 1984; Liu and Zhou 1984; Li and Yang 1986; He and Yang 1987, 1988). Ovary culture now provides a reliable experimental system for haploid production in rice, at least in japonica varieties, and is therefore worth pursuing.