Review and prospect of mulberry polyploid breeding

This paper briefly deals with the history and status quo of mulberry polyploid breeding and describes characters and economic value of the polyploids,in particular triploid and tetraploid.China is the most abundant in mulberry polyploid resources,of which 64,13,66,2 and 1 portions of natural triploid,tetraploid,hexaploid,octoploid and dicosaploid have been found, respectively.Progress in polyploidy breeding of mulberry in China has been fast in recent years,such as in the techniques of tetraploid induction,triploid breeding and polyploid hybrid combination.A number of promising triploid and hybrid combinations have been bred out.Direction of the polyploid breeding in future is also discussed.