EN
Genetic barrier remains one of the major difficulties in maize anther culture and its application in breeding procedure. In order to investigate the genetic effects of anther culturability, five maize inbred lines with different anther culturability, including world-wide used commercial lines Mo17 and B73, were selected to form a 5 x 5 complete diallel cross. 1500-2000 anthers from each of the 25 combinations were cultured on modified Yupei medium. 0-20.93 embryoids per 100 plated anthers were produced from different combinations. Inbred line A3 had the highest anther culturability and produced at least 5 embryoids per 100 anthers in any involved combinations. Hayman’s diallel analysis results showed that both embryoid and plant yields are genetically controlled. The additive effects were predominant while the dominant effects were significant only for plant yield. The dominance was partial and the dominant genes had the positive effects on anther culturability. The narrow sense heritability (h2N) are 0.97 and 0.96 for embryoid and plant yields respectively. Taken together, these results suggested that the genetic improvement of maize anther culturability might be efficient using hybridisation and/or selection procedures.