Interspecific hybridization in lily: the use of 2n-gametes in interspecific lily hybrids

Lily comprises more than 80 species belonging to 7 sections. Within the sections cultivars bred from Sinomartagon, Archelirion, and Leucolirion are the most important in the commercial market. At this moment, the most promising breakthrough in lily breeding is the raising of new cultivar through interspecific hybridization with introgression of useful genetic traits from species or breeding materials belonging to the wild species which are not commonly used so far for commercial breeding. We have been crossing almost all different cross combinations and have succeeded in more than 28 cross combinations since 1980. The F1 hybrids between the species have shown the intermediate phenotypic characteristics. Making interspecific or intergeneric hybrid is laborious but finding the clues, affecting to the most successful embryo formation, and growth is even more difficult and time consuming. Therefore research on the successful interspecific hybridization between distantly related species was carried out at several laboratories in the world. For the successful interspecific hybridization breeding, not only production of F1 interspecific hybrids but also successful production of subsequent generations using interspecific hybrids to introgress valuable trait(s) is important. One of the promising crosses is of course between Orientals and several species such as L. henryi, Asiatics, and trumpet lilies. In this context, we demonstrate the possible methods and some valuable instances of the interspecific hybridization in lilies