Reconstruction of allopolyploid brassicas through non-homologous recombination: introgression of resistance to pod shatter in Brassica napus.

Pod shattering of rapeseed ( Brassica napus ) causes serious yield loss. Genetic resistance to shattering has been introgressed into B. napus from B. juncea . This followed from allosyndetic pairing between chromosomes of B and C genomes in the interspecific F1 hybrid, B. juncea × B. napus (2 n = 37, AABC). The reconstituted B. napus plant showed regular meiosis with 19 bivalents and had pollen and seed fertility of 84 and 23% respectively. An approach is suggested for achieving introgression from monogenomic diploids to digenomic allopolyploids that exploits non-homologous recombination.