Quartet breeding

A method for the production of a set of Arabidopsis seeds which are genetically identical to the male gametes from which they arise, comprising:

• a) placing two or four paternal gametes from Arabidopsis that have the form of tetrads or dyads on the stigma of an Arabidopsis flower to fertilize maternal egg cells, to obtain a number of zygotes;
• b) inducing the loss of maternal chromosomes from the zygotes to obtain a seed set containing a limited number of seeds in which the maternal chromosomes are absent,
• wherein the two or four paternal gametes is equal to or lower than the number of egg cells contained in the female reproductive organ attached to the stigma and
• wherein the loss of maternal chromosomes from the zygote is induced by using a haploid inducer line as the female, wherein the female is a transgenic plant comprising a heterologous transgene expression cassette comprising a promoter operably linked to a polynucleotide encoding a recombinantly altered CENH3 polypeptide, and having a corresponding inactivated endogenous CENH3 gene,
• wherein the paternal gametes that have the form of tetrads or dyads result from interference with microspore tetrad separation and
• wherein interference with microspore tetrad separation comprises interference with a QRT1 gene.