Improvement in efficiency of microspore culture to produce doubled haploid canola (Brassica napus L.) by flow cytometry

The efficiency of production of doubled haploid plants in canola (Brassica napus L.) breeding programmes is reduced when large numbers of haploid and infertile plants survive until flowering. We used flow cytometry to determine ploidy status and predict subsequent fertility of microspore-derived plantlets from three canola genotypes, with or without colchicine treatment of microspore suspensions. Young leaf tissue was sampled from microspore-derived plantlets within 1 week of transfer to soil, and processed immediately by flow cytometry. The process was repeated on the same plants 3–5 weeks later. Of the 519 plants transferred to soil, 57.2% were consistently haploid at both sample times, 33.5% were consistently diploid at both sample times, and the remainder (9.2%) were uncertain or inconsistent in ploidy status across sampling times. Of the 518 plants that survived to flowering, 32.4% were diploid at both times of sampling and fertile (set seed) and 46.3% were haploid at both sampling times and infertile. Another 10.8% were haploid at both sampling times and fertile, but had low pollen viability and seed set, and some were triploid or of uncertain ploidy level. Colchicine treatment of microspore suspensions significantly increased the proportion of diploid plants from 9.7 to 69.7%, with significant variation among genotypes. Evidence from simple sequence repeat marker loci indicated that diploid and fertile plants from the control treatment (no colchicine) were derived from spontaneously doubled haploid gametes, rather than unreduced gametes or somatic tissue. Flow cytometry at the first sample time was very efficient in detecting diploid plants of which 94.2% were subsequently fertile.