Analysis of the genotypic effect on different developmental pathways in wheat gametophyte cultures.

Seven wheat cultivars and one wild subspecies Triticum aestivum ssp. spelta were compared for their in vitro fertility and androgenetic capacity by studying their anther culture response and in vitro seed production. Both haploid embryogenesis and in vitro seed set showed very wide genotype dependent variability in accordance with previous observations. At the same time, an analysis of the data showed a significant negative correlation between the in vitro androgenetic ability and the in vitro fertilization potential, which was especially obvious in the case of highly embryogenic genotypes. The reason for this inverse correlation might be the different genetic regulation of the two quantitative traits. Presumably, alleles which increase the stability of the gametogenetic developmental programme hinder the initiation of haploid embryogenesis, while alleles with the opposite effect promote the sporophytic type of growth.