Exploring the Strategies of Male Sterility for Hybrid Development in Hexaploid Wheat: Prevailing Methods and Potential Approaches.

Hybrid breeding has emerged as a pivotal strategy to enhance wheat crop yield, a critical step to meet the escalating food demand for the growing global population. Heterosis in wheat can boost crop yield; however, harnessing heterosis in bread wheat is complex and hindered by the species' inherent tendency for self-pollination, high genome ploidy, and limitation of male sterile lines. In contrast, the availability of genetic male sterility, and altering reproductive biology such as anther extrusion and floret opening, is challenging but could facilitate outcrossing.