Can different kinds of plants produce offspring through artificial pollination?

Different kinds of plants can produce offspring through artificial pollination.

Plants of different species produce offspring through artificial pollination, which is a hybridization between different species of the same genus. Hybridization between two varieties, inbred lines, self-incompatible lines or male sterile lines and restorers with different genetic basis.

In nature, hybridization between different species is very common, especially in the plant kingdom, and there are some special cases in the animal kingdom. This hybridization can produce new species that can reproduce. The offspring produced by hybridization are called hybrids. The mating of individuals between different species or geographically distant subspecies is called distant hybridization, and the individuals obtained are called distant hybrids. On the contrary, the hybridization between closely related individuals is called inbreeding, or inbreeding, including sibling hybridization and half-sibling hybridization (see inbreeding). Inbreeding can be used to establish pure lines. The mating between the same individual or cloned individuals is called selfing. All mating except self-crossing belongs to outcrossing, regardless of genotypic differences between parents.

Whether the hybridization of different species can produce offspring mainly depends on the similarity of genomes. If two species are "distant relatives", their genome similarity will be very small, and the possibility of producing offspring is also very small. It is the highly similar genomes of lions and tigers, horses and donkeys that make it possible to reproduce. The similarity between human and primate genomes is generally as high as 90%, and even as high as 99% with gorillas. The hybridization between them is likely to produce offspring that can continue to reproduce.

Plant hybridization is mostly used to increase crop yield or improve crop uniformity and vitality. Maize, sorghum, rice, beet, onion, spinach, sunflower, broccoli, hemp and other breeding hybrids only use the first generation hybrid, because the heterosis is most obvious in the first generation and gradually decreases from the second generation. If the second generation is allowed to self-cross or continue to mate freely with each generation, the result will be that the heterozygosity will gradually decrease and the heterosis will tend to decline or even die out. Heterosis refers to the phenomenon that the first generation hybrid produced by crossing two parents with different genetic composition is superior to their parents in growth potential, vitality, fecundity, stress resistance, yield and quality. Heterosis is a comprehensive expression of many traits, and the size of heterosis often depends on the relative differences and complementarities between parents. Generally speaking, the greater the difference in genetic relationship, ecological type and physiological characteristics, the stronger the heterosis, the higher the homozygosity of parents, and the more uniform the heterosis can be obtained.