Sexual reproduction is an essential process in the propagation of flowering
plants. The vegetative life cycle of plants starts with the fusion of male
and female gametes in the course of double fertilisation. Investigations o
n the reproductive processes of agriculturally important crop plants, inclu
ding cereals, are of great importance in breeding and seed sciences. For a
long time much of our basic knowledge of sexual reproduction of the floweri
ng plants has been derived from comprehensive information obtained from mor
phological (histological, cytological and ultrastructural) studies. Recent
advances in plant cell and molecular biology have brought new, sophisticate
d experimental techniques to investigate and to micromanipulate the reprodu
ctive cells of plants for various biotechnological purposes (e.g. haploid i
nduction, in vitro fertilisation, DNA transformation).
The present paper gives a review of the results achieved in our cooperating
laboratories within the fields of experimental flowering biology and biote
chnology of sexual reproduction in cereals.