Development of commercially popular hybrids depends upon the availability of homozygous parental lines in any crop species. In conventional breeding program homozygous lines are developed by repetitive self-pollination for 6-8 generations which might take 3-4 years depending upon the crop species.

Availability of optimized doubled haploid protocols circumvents this problem and homozygous parental lines could be developed in two generations within a year. We have successfully developed high throughput protocols for doubled haploid production in sweet and hot peppers. With a turnaround time of less than a year we could develop homozygous lines from a hybrid of customer’s choice. We are in the process of developing optimized protocols for haploid production of cucumbers.