Harnessing Components of Apomixis for Agricultural Productivity

Commercial seed businesses, like DuPont Pioneer, depend on controlled reproduction of the crop plants they develop. Control of reproduction is critical in every stage of product development from initial breeding stages through commercial seed production. Innovative manipulations of plant reproductive biology, such as haploid induction technology, have increased the rate of breeding. Others, such as cytoplasmic male sterility and the harnessing of nuclear male sterility, have led to more efficient production of hybrids and are enabling the next generation of hybrid crops. However, all these technologies focus on male reproductive biology and the potential from manipulating plant female reproductive biology has gone largely untapped. A major, multi-generational pursuit in plant female reproductive biology research is apomixis, or clonal reproduction through seed. DuPont Pioneer has supported and been engaged in research to develop apomixis-related technologies for a number of years. The ultimate aim of these efforts is synthetic apomixis resulting in fixation of important agronomic traits such as hybrid vigor, a key benefit to agricultural productivity. We will explore the components of apomixis from an agricultural perspective and advancements which may facilitate the engineering of apomixis in crops.