ABSTRACT
Development of hybrid seed technology for improvement of crop productivity is one of the most important advances in agriculture. Effective cross-pollination between male fertile and sterile lines in seed production plots is a major problem in exploiting any pollination control system for commercial production of hybrid seeds. Pollinators tend to avoid male sterile plants because of their low reward value and thus pollination becomes a constraint. The success of hybrid seed technology depends on the cost of producing hybrid seeds. A more effective method which can be used for a wide range of species is to identify male fertile or sterile plants through a marker phenotype controlled by pleiotropic effects of the genic male sterile (GMS) gene or a gene closely linked to it. Cytoplasmic male sterility is more convenient than GMS for hybrid seed production, as the progeny show no segregation into fertile and sterile plants and hence require no rogueing of fertile plants in seed production plots.
