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Seed Biotechnology Center at UC Davis
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introduction
genetic purity
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Hybridity and varietal purity tests

Hybrid seed is seed produced by cross-pollinating plants in a controlled environment. Hybrids are bred to improve the characteristics of the resulting plants, such as better yield, greater uniformity, improved vigor, color, disease resistance, and so forth.

Today, hybrid seed is predominant in agriculture and home gardening, and is one of the main contributing factors to the dramatic rise in agricultural output during the last half of the 20th century.

In the U.S., the commercial market was launched in the 1920s, with the first hybrid maize.

Hybrid seed cannot be saved for replanting without losing the benefits of the original variety as these traits randomly segregate among the saved seed, not reliably producing true copies of the original variety.  
 

New seed must therefore be produced for each planting.

As genetic purity is a function of seed production, each hybrid seed lot must be tested for parentage and purity.

To achieve this, hundreds of seeds from each seed lot are planted and observed for uniformity in field tests.

Protein and DNA molecular marker analyses are also widely used for hybrid purity testing.


Protein analysis is often prefered because it is less expensive, but DNA tests are becoming increasingly affordable.

Similar tests are applied to open-pollinated and synthetic varieties to assure varietal purity.

 

information presented by SeedQuest and The Seed Biotechnology Center at UC Davis

 


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