Fig. 1: There are five hypotheses to explain the mechanism of heterosis based on gene effects.

Suppose that the biomass is the sum of the genetic effects (A, B, C) and that the biomass of an organism is represented by the circular area. A Dominance effect: the dominant allele (A) inhibits the recessive allele (a); (B) overdominance effect: a single heterozygous allele (B/B−) promotes the development of heterosis; (C) Epistasis effect: nonallelic (A1/B1) interactions in the parents promote the development of heterosis; (D) active gene effect: genes from parents (C) promote heterosis when heterozygous and produce genome imprinting when homozygous, which inhibits the occurrence of heterosis; (E) gene network system: genes from parents (A, B, C) are combined into a coordinated gene network system that enables F1 to develop heterosis; (F) single-cross hybrids P1 (AB) and P2 (CD) produced from four homozygous inbred tetraploids (with genotypes A, B, C, and D) are crossed to produce F1 (ABCD), a double-cross tetraploid hybrid