EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Polyploidy is when the organisms contain more than two sets of chromosomes. It generally increases the resistance to disease, size and vigour but not length of lifecycle.

Detailed explanation-2: -Bread wheat is a polyploid derived from the hybridizations between three distinct diploid species and is an informative system for analyzing the effects of recent polyploidy on gene expression.

Detailed explanation-3: -Polyploids arise by chromosome doubling of an individual genome (autoploidy) or by chromosome doubling of hybrids between species whose chromosomes normally do not pair (allopolyploidy).

Detailed explanation-4: -Modern wheat production comes from two polyploid species, Triticum aestivum and Triticum turgidum (var durum), which putatively arose from diploid ancestors Triticum urartu, Aegilops speltoides, and Aegilops tauschii.

Detailed explanation-5: -Some of the most important consequences of polyploidy for plant breeding are the increment in plant organs ("gigas” effect), buffering of deleterious mutations, increased heterozygosity, and heterosis (hybrid vigor).