Androgenesis

Development of an organism with only paternal genes

Some plant species, e.g. tobacco, barley, potatoes, rape, and wheat, can produce haploid plants (plants with only one set of chromosomes) from unripe pollen (haploid androgenesis). This technique is used in conventional plant breeding to produce fully homozygous, double haploid strains (haploid breeding). Ova can also be used as the source material, although this is more unusual (haploid parthenogenesis).

In animals, androgenesis is understood to mean an experimental development of an embryo from a fertilised egg from which the nucleus has been removed. The embryo therefore contains only paternal genes. Techniques like this are used in fish breeding, for example.