Iranian Specialists Increase Efforts to Produce More Hybrid, Summer Crops Seeds

“We, at Islamic Azad University’s Isfahan branch, are determined to provide a significant part of the country's needs to greenhouse hybrid seeds and summer crops seeds in the next few years,” Hamidreza Javanmard, the head of the Center for Innovation of Seeds and Greenhouse Inputs of Islamic Azad University’s Isfahan branch told ANA.

He added that given the recent increase in the number of greenhouses due to the limited water resources in Iran and the higher yield of greenhouse products, the Ministry of Agricultural Jihad has predicted that the area of the country’s greenhouses will reach nearly 70,000 hectares in the next seven years.

“Therefore, the country's needs to greenhouse seeds is increasing day by day and we can make a great help to the country in terms of food security,” Javanmard said.

In agriculture and gardening, hybrid seed is produced by cross-pollinated plants. Hybrid seed production is predominant in modern agriculture and home gardening. It is one of the main contributors to the dramatic rise in agricultural output during the last half of the 20th century. The alternatives to hybridization are open pollination and clonal propagation.

All of the hybrid seeds planted by the farmer will produce similar plants, while the seeds of the next generation from those hybrids will not consistently have the desired characteristics. Controlled hybrids provide very uniform characteristics because they are produced by crossing two inbred strains. Elite inbred strains are used that express well-documented and consistent phenotypes (such as high crop yield) that are relatively good for inbred plants.

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