Agronomie performance of wheat doubled haploids produced through wheat X maize crosses

Wheat X maize crosses are used as a method ofwheat doubled haploid (DH)production, alternative to anther culture. The study was conducted to comparethe agronomic performance of DH lines produced through wide crosses withlines obtained by the single seed descent (SSD) method from the same plant material. Fi progeny of spring wheat varieties: Eta x Sigma (both Polish) and Eta xDarkhan 15 (Mongolian) were used for DH and SSD production. Doubled haploids (DH3, DH4) and SSD (F5) lines from both genotypes were evaluated forplant height, spike length, tillering, grain weight and number per plant and1000 grain weight in a randomised, three replicated experiment. Mean performance, coefficient of variation and frequency distribution of DH and SSD lineswere similar for most of the analysed traits. The comparison of the best 10°b ofDH and SSD lines from both crosses (selected or. the basis of grain weight perplant) confirmed their similar performance. For the majority of the analysedcharacters, the best DH lines derived from both DH populations did not differfrom better parents and check varieties. Ten percent of Eta x Sigma DH linesperformed significantly better for 1000 grain weight than both parental genotypes, heterotic F, and check varieties. The results indicate that maize pollination system is an efficient method of producing high yielding homozygous linesof wheat and it may be recommended for a wide use in wheat breedingprogrammes.