Molecular and agronomic evaluation of wheat doubled haploid lines obtained through maize pollination and anther culture methods

Although maize pollination (MP) and anther culture (AC) are alternative techniques widely used for wheat doubled haploid (DH) production, there is only limited information on the attributes of the plant materials produced through both methods. This study was conducted to evaluate genetic fidelity, transmission of parental gametes. and to compare field performance of DH Populations produced by the MP and AC methods from the F(1)s of two crosses between spring bread wheat cultivars. The DH populations were compared to single seed descent (SSD) lines created from the same crosses. In total, 76 NIP and 122 AC lines of the cross between cultivars of divergent origin were subjected to RAPD and AFLP analysis. Only changes in AFLP banding patterns, at similarly low frequencies, 0.18% (MP) and 0.21% (AC), were detected. The frequency of the DH lines affected by the variation. 14.5% (MP) and 14.8% (AC), was similar in both populations. For most of the DH lines. variation in 1-2 loci only, out of several hundreds scored, was observed. A total of 14.3% (MP) and 22.2% (AC) marker loci showed the significant segregation distortion from the expected 1 : 1 ratio, but in at least one polymorphic locus the within cultivar variation was responsible for the skewed segregation. The field performance of the corresponding MP and AC lines derived from two crosses confirmed the equivalency of both DH populations. In Most Of the traits analyzed, the MP and AC lines performed the same as the SSD populations created from the same crosses. No, or very small differences in means and ranges, were observed when the best 10% of the lines from all three methods were compared. Moreover, the best 10% of the lines of the cross between Polish wheat cultivars adapted to the local environment performed significantly better for some traits than different groups of checks used in the study.