ABSTRACT
Triploid plants have larger organs, greater biomass and strong stress resistance by preserving relatively larger amounts of photosynthetic energy. One of the new trends in genomic research is to create synthetic polyploid plants to provide materials for studying initial genomic responses immediately after polyploid formation. Thus triploid plants have attracted more attention and there has recently been great progress in understanding the details of their formation after decades of investigation. This chapter summarises the applications of triploid plants and ways to generate triploid plants, possible obstacles to generating triploids and some solutions to these obstacles. The influence of polyploidy on adaptability and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses has been widely studied in crop plants. In some cases polyploids have demonstrated greater resistance to pests and pathogens, greater nutrient uptake efficiency, better drought resistance and superior cold tolerance.
