Iowa State Doubled Haploid Research Receives $960,107

By Marcus Bennett

A $960,107 investment is funding Iowa State University research on doubled haploid technology, which can produce stable crop breeding lines in two generations instead of the six to eight required by traditional methods.

The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research is providing the money with matching funders Iowa State University, KeyGene, KWS and RAGT. The Growing Impact Award supports research moving closer to practical use. FFAR did not itemize the partners' contributions, so each funder's stake remains unclear.

Partners backing the $960,107 commitment:

• Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research
• Iowa State University
• KeyGene
• KWS
• RAGT

How does the method shorten the breeding cycle?

Producing stable breeding lines takes time. Most crops carry two sets of chromosomes. Breeders can create haploid plants with only one set, which speeds the production of genetically uniform material.

Those plants usually cannot reproduce. Breeders commonly rely on costly, time-consuming chemical treatments to double their chromosomes, then use the resulting plants to build hybrids with desired traits.

Dr. Thomas Lübberstedt, an ISU professor and the K.J. Frey Chair in Agronomy, wants to reduce that step. His team will test whether genes tied to haploid fertility can let plants double their chromosomes naturally.

FFAR scientific program director Dr. Kathy Munkvold said: "Helping farmers succeed in the face of new and increased obstacles to production requires giving plant breeders better tools to build the crops that can handle those challenges." She added: "This research is helping plant breeders move useful traits from the lab to the farm more quickly."

What does this change for farmers?

Shorter timelines could deliver varieties with the traits growers need sooner:

• Higher yield
• Disease resistance
• Better performance during drought or flooding

The current work centers on corn. The team aims to produce stable inbred lines in two generations without seedling treatment and transplanting. Moving from six to eight generations down to two removes four to six rounds from the line-development stage.

For crop breeding operations, fewer chemical and handling steps mean lower costs inside the development pipeline. FFAR's announcement provides no release date, seed price estimate or measure of farm-level basis and margin effects, so those claims remain untested.

The result to watch is whether two-generation, treatment-free inbred corn lines emerge from the trials. That outcome would indicate whether the method has moved beyond laboratory proof into routine breeding practice.

What builds on Iowa State's breeding history?

Iowa State traces the method to Dr. Sherret Chase, who developed doubled haploid technology on the ISU faculty from 1947 to 1953. His work established an approach now widely used in maize breeding. After decades of further development, major maize breeding programs produce millions of doubled haploid lines every year.

The new grant builds on Lübberstedt's 2020 FFAR Seeding Solutions grant, which identified genes involved in haploid plant fertility. Earlier work showed that altering some of those genes could allow haploid plants to reproduce. The current tests ask whether the genes can help those plants double their chromosomes naturally, reducing the need for chemical treatment. Because fertility genes are shared across plant species, corn results could inform breeding approaches in other crops.

Lübberstedt said: "While I expect rapid benefits of this FFAR project with regard to methods for doubled haploid line development, I also foresee longer-term research opportunities to enable novel breeding schemes based on fertile haploid plants." He called the project "another major innovation."

How does the funding advance the work?

The Growing Impact Award is a competitive program that supports research previously funded through FFAR's Seeding Solutions and New Innovator in Food & Agriculture Research Award programs. FFAR says the award accelerates innovation, strengthens public and private partnerships, and expands the benefits of funded research for U.S. agriculture, consistent with the foundation's Research Strategy.

The investment also complements a U.S. Department of Agriculture research and development priority called Increasing Profitability of Farmers and Ranchers.

The corn trials will determine whether the chemistry step disappears from breeding pipelines. Until those results arrive, faster variety releases and lower production costs remain goals rather than measured gains.