摘要For autogamous crops,a precondition for using heterosis is to produce sufficient pure male-sterile female parents that can be used to produce hybrid seeds.To date,cytoplasmic male sterility(CMS)and environment-sensitive genic male sterility(EGMS)have been used commercially to exploit heterosis for autogamous species.However,nei-ther CMS nor EGMS has been established for foxtail millet(Setaria italica).Here,we report on the establishment and application of a seed production technology(SPT)system for this crop.First,we established a DsRed-based SPT system,but found that it was unsuitable because it required the use of a fluorescent device for seed sorting.Instead,we constructed an SPT system with de novo betalain biosynthesis as the se-lection marker.This allowed us to distinguish transgenic seeds with the naked eye,thereby fa-cilitating the identification of SPT maintainer line seeds.In this system,a seed sorter was not re-quired to obtain sufficient seeds.The key point of the strategy is that the seed pool of the SPT maintainer line is propagated by artificial identi-fication and harvesting of male-fertile individuals in the field,and the male-sterile line seed pool for hybrid production is produced and propagated by free pollination of male-sterile plants with the SPT maintainer line.In a field experiment,we ob-tained 423.96 kg male-sterile line seeds per acre,which is sufficient to plant 700.18 acres of farm-land for hybrid seed production or male-sterile line reproduction.Our study therefore describes a powerful tool for hybrid seed production in foxtail millet,and demonstrates how the SPT system can be used for a small-grained crop with high reproduction efficiency.