Complications of polyploidy

The examples we have looked at have involved diploid crops, that is, they have just 2 sets of homologous chromosomes. Many plants are polyploid, they have more than two sets of chromosomes. The basic principles of mapping and QTL discovery are the same, however they are more complex.

Some well-known polyploids are:

Triploid: banana

Tetraploid: potato, durum wheat

Hexaploid: bread wheat, oat

Octaploid: switchgrass, strawberry