26 October 2026, Perth: Western Australia’s Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) has launched a three-year research project aimed at making one of plant breeding’s most useful shortcuts, doubled haploid technology, faster and cheaper to use in wheat and barley. The project, co-funded by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and announced on October 14, brings in two of Australia’s commercial grain breeding companies, LongReach Plant Breeders and InterGrain, as partners.
Doubled haploid (DH) breeding is a technique that lets breeders create genetically pure, stable crop lines in a single generation. Conventional breeding normally requires six to eight generations of repeated self-pollination to reach that same genetic stability, a process that can take years. DH breeding compresses that timeline dramatically, which is why it has become a standard tool in wheat and barley breeding programs worldwide, including in major producing countries such as India, where public breeding institutes also rely on DH lines to speed up variety release.
The technique works by taking a plant’s anther, the part of the flower that produces pollen, and inducing its immature pollen cells (called microspores) to develop into embryos in a laboratory dish rather than into pollen grains. Because these embryos carry only half the normal set of chromosomes, they are then chemically treated to double their chromosome number, producing a stable, fertile plant in one step. In practice, though, this process works unevenly. Many wheat and barley varieties respond poorly to current anther culture protocols, producing very few plantlets, or plantlets that are sterile or lack the green pigment needed to survive, a persistent technical bottleneck that limits how widely breeders can use the method.
What the Research Will Target
The DPIRD-led project will use comparative genomics and transcriptomics, essentially comparing DNA sequences and tracking which genes are switched on, across different wheat and barley genotypes to pinpoint the specific genes that control three key steps in the process: chromosome doubling, embryo induction, and green-plant regeneration (the recovery of healthy, green, fertile plantlets instead of sterile or albino ones). Identifying these genes should let researchers predict, and eventually improve, which genotypes will respond well to DH breeding.
A second strand of the work will test transient gene silencing and expression, a method that temporarily switches specific genes on or off inside a plant cell without permanently altering its DNA and without the change being passed on to future generations. This distinguishes the approach from gene editing or genetic modification, since no lasting change is introduced into the plant’s genetic code. Researchers will also investigate why so-called ovary-conditioned culture medium, a growth medium that has been in contact with ovary tissue, appears to help microspores develop into doubled haploid lines, a phenomenon that is observed in practice but not yet well understood at the molecular level.
Dr Yong Han, the DPIRD researcher leading the project, said doubled haploid techniques are valuable tools for crop breeding and genetics research, and that bringing these different lines of investigation together would take the technology to the next level. Dr Jessica Hyles, GRDC’s Senior Manager for Genetic Technologies, said the goal was to make these breeding tools more efficient and cost-effective for breeding programs generally. The findings will also feed into GRDC’s wider Accelerating Genetic Gain Strategic Initiative, a program designed to speed up variety development across multiple breeding projects rather than just this one.
For breeding companies like LongReach and InterGrain, a more reliable and lower-cost DH pipeline translates directly into shorter variety development cycles and lower R&D overheads, since fewer failed attempts at anther culture mean less wasted lab time and glasshouse space per successful line. Over a three-year horizon, that could mean new wheat and barley varieties, bred for traits such as disease resistance, drought tolerance, or grain quality, reaching commercial release faster than under current protocols.
Global Agriculture is an independent international media platform covering agri-business, policy, technology, and sustainability. For editorial collaborations, thought leadership, and strategic communications, write to pr@global-agriculture.com
