The importance of haploids is well known to geneticists and plant breeders. The discovery of anther-derived haploid Datura plants in 1964 initiated great excitement in the plant breeding and genetics communities as it offered shortcuts in producing highly desirable homozygous plants. Unfortunately, the expected revolution was slow to materialise due to problems in extending methods to other species, including genotypic dependence, recalcitrance, slow development of tissue culture technologies and a lack of knowledge of the underlying processes. Recent years have witnessed great strides in the...

The importance of haploids is well known to geneticists and plant breeders. The discovery of anther-derived haploid Datura plants in 1964 initiated great excitement in the plant breeding and genetics communities as it offered shortcuts in producing highly desirable homozygous plants. Unfortunately, the expected revolution was slow to materialise due to problems in extending methods to other species, including genotypic dependence, recalcitrance, slow development of tissue culture technologies and a lack of knowledge of the underlying processes. Recent years have witnessed great strides in the...