Objectives of this review were to present the state of the art of the technologies used to develop cultivars in allogamous species, excluding the perennial and asexually propagated species. It was reviewed the genetic structure of these species and its relationship with the development of cultivars, the technologies used to develop hybrids and improved open-pollinated varieties and their F1´s, and the impact of the biotechnology and the mixed models on the development of cultivars. A summary of results from the researches developed in the maize breeding project at the Department of Genetics of the Agriculture College "Luiz de Queiroz" will be presented.
cultivar; hybrids; molecular markers; recurrent selection; mixed models