The invention provides a method to produce a mutant gene, wherein said gen comprises a modified promoter and wherein said gene is capable of inducing the parthenogenesis phenotype to a plant. The invention further provides said mutant gene, isolated nucleic acid molecule, construct or vector comprising the same. Also, the invention provides for a method to produce a parthenogenetic plant comprising the mutant gene, and the parthenogenetic plant thus obtained.

The present inventions relate to a breeding system for the production of polyploid potato seeds, plants, or plant parts where cycles of meiosis, syngamy, and selection are used for interpopulation improvement of progenitor lines, and sexual polyploidization occurs during hybrid production by inducing clonal gamete formation in the parents that are to be crossed. Reciprocal recurrent selection can be used to inform selection of candidate potato lines that are either advanced to a gene editing or genetic modification system or crossed and selected to induce clonal gamete formation by arresting meiotic recombination and chromosome reduction. Crosses of parent plants bearing clonal gametes are planned and executed based upon predicted heterotic performance at the polyploid level. The final product is a homogeneous population of hybrid polyploid potato seed, or derivative thereof, bearing both parents' complete nuclear genomes. In some instances, the method is used to generate seedless plants.

A method for acquiring humidity-sensitive male-sterile Triticum aestivum L includes: with Triticum aestivum L. as a donor plant, mutating a 1595th nucleotide of a coding sequence of a TaGMS-A gene from G to A, mutating a 6th nucleotide of a coding sequence of a TaGMS-B gene from G to A, and mutating a 791st nucleotide of a coding sequence of a TaGMS-D gene from C to T to produce the humidity-sensitive male-sterile Triticum aestivum L. The fertility of the humidity-sensitive male-sterile Triticum aestivum L. can be restored by moisturizing ears during a flowering period. Therefore, the humidity-sensitive male-sterile Triticum aestivum L. has a promising application prospect in the crossbreeding of Triticum aestivum L.

The present disclosure relates to materials and methods useful for improving the efficacy of a plant breeding program such as, for example, the method for producing hybrid seeds in a facultative apomictic crop species, which in turns are useful for, for example, commercial production of highly uniform hybrid progeny. Hybrid seeds produced by such improved breeding methods, and plant grown from such hybrid seeds are also within the scope of the present invention. The disclosure further relates to processes for making a plant-derived product derived from any of the foregoing hybrid plants, and plant-derived products produced by such processes.

Plant cell fate and development is altered by treating cells with cellular reprogramming factors. Embryogenesis inducing embryogenesis factor genes and/or morphogenic developmental genes are used as cellular reprogramming factors, specifically comprising polypeptides or polynucleotides encoding gene products for generating doubled haploids or haploid plants from gametes. Maize microspores treated by contacting the isolated cells with an exogenous purified, recombinant embryogenesis inducing embryogenesis factor gene products and/or morphogenic developmental gene polypeptide results in embryogenesis. The gametes of a maize plant develop into embryoids when transformed with a genetic construct including regulatory elements and structural genes capable of acting in a cascading fashion to alter cellular fate of plant cells. Embryogenesis factor proteins and/or developmental morphogenic proteins expressed from a genetic construct are used for ex situ treatment methods and for in planta cellular reprogramming.