Doubled Haploids in Rice Improvement: Approaches, Applications, and Future Prospects

Exploitation of biotechnological tools in conventional breeding strategies is the need of the hour for overcoming limitations in rice production and productivity. In addition, improvement in quantity and quality along with resistance to climatic and disease stress in rice require immediate attention. Anther culture has proven its efficiency by instantaneously fixing homozygosity through diploidization of regenerated haploid plants. Therefore, androgenesis provides an efficient platform for developing inbred lines in a short period of time. Although anther culture shows its efficiency in speeding up breeding in several crop species, including rice, associated limitations still prevent the exploitation of its optimum potential. Although anther culture is well exploited in japonica rice breeding, its application in indica rice is limited because of inherent recalcitrant genetic backgrounds. The success of anther culture is determined by several factors that limit the efficiency of androgenesis. Identified constraints are early anther necrosis, poor-callus response, and proliferation, and low green-plant regeneration, along with the most frustrating albinism associated with indica rice, which has been considerably clarified. This chapter details the method of androgenesis and scope for improving the applicability of anther culture producing doubled haploids of rice in order to use it as a complementary tool for precision breeding.