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. 2025 Jun 3:16:1572901.
doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1572901. eCollection 2025.

Genetic variation and heritability of haploid frailty in maize

Recep Yavuz  1 , Hao Wang  2 , Mercy Fakude  1 , Abil Dermail  3 , Ursula Karoline Frei  1 , Peng Liu  2 , Thomas Lübberstedt  1
Affiliations

Genetic variation and heritability of haploid frailty in maize

Recep Yavuz et al. Front Plant Sci. .

Abstract

This research investigated the variation in haploid frailty (%HF), which is the difference in trait performance between isogenic haploid and diploid maize lines, and the heritability of haploid frailty for different agronomic traits. A total of 48 isogenic pairs was evaluated in three environments, and 192 isogenic line pairs were evaluated in two environments for plant height (PH), ear height (EH), flag leaf length (FLL) and width (FLW), tassel length (TL), spike length (SL), stem diameter (SD) and tassel branch (TB) number. We found that the qshgd1 locus, associated with spontaneous haploid genome doubling (SHGD), plays a crucial role in improving haploid performance by reducing %HF and promoting diploid-like vigor. The BS39+SHGD genotypes exhibited significantly lower HF% rates compared to the BS39 group, with consistent reductions across multiple traits. Environmental factors also contributed to %HF variation, but genetic influences such as the presence of SHGD proved to have a greater impact on haploid frailty. Leveraging SHGD to enhance both vigor and fertility of haploid plants, is likely to benefit breeding programs in maize and perhaps other crops by more economic and efficient production of DH lines.

Keywords: doubled haploid; haploid frailty; haploid induction; heritability; plant height; spontaneous haploid genome doubling.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The distribution of observed PH, EH. Boxplots are plotted by genotype group, arranged by environment, traits, and datasets. Colors represent ploidy levels.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The distribution of computed %HF for PH, ear height EH. Boxplots are plotted by the genotype group, arranged by traits and datasets. Colors represent environments.
Figure 3
Figure 3
HIL-DH line pairs with pronounced differences between haploid (n) and diploid (2n) plants, e.g., for PH.
Figure 4
Figure 4
HIL-DH line pairs with small differences between haploid and diploid plants for PH.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Summary by traits for %HF and heritability.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Summary by traits for mean %HF and heritability. Colors show different datasets. Line types and shapes show genotype groups.
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