Patent ID: 7842850

Claim:
A method for producing at least one hybrid between a first parent plant of a wild perennial Glycine species, which carries a desirable agronomic trait, and a second parent plant that is a domestic annual Glycine cultivar, wherein said hybrid carries said desirable agronomic trait and is capable of being backcrossed with a domestic annual Glycine cultivar to produce at least one plant of a first backcross (BC1) generation that retains said desirable trait wherein a desired backcrossed plant carrying said desirable agronomic trait is produced within a time period of about three to four years, said method comprising: (a) providing a plurality of first and second parent plants; (b) allowing the parent plants to flower; (c) emasculating flowers of one of said first or second parent plants and fertilizing said emasculated flowers with pollen from the other of said first or second parent plants; (d) obtaining at least one immature seed from a pod resulting from said fertilized flowers; (e) culturing said seed on a seed maturation medium comprising sufficient growth hormones to produce morphogenic callus wherein said medium prevents seed germination; (f) culturing embryos produced by said callus on a multiple shoot-regeneration medium to produce shoots; (g) rooting said shoots to form plantlets, and hardening said plantlets to form hybrid plants; and (h) treating hybrid plants of step (g) with colchicine to double their chromosome number, thereby making at least amphidiploid plant that is capable of being backcrossed with a domestic annual Glycine cultivar to produce at least one plant of a BC 1 generation carrying said desirable agronomic trait.