Methods for plant transformation, for improving transformation efficiency, and for producing transgenic plants are provided. The methods comprise crossing a recipient plant from a genetic line of a plant species of interest with a donor plant selected from a transformation competent genetic line of the same plant species or of another closely related plant species to obtain a hybrid plant. Tissues obtained from the hybrid plant are transformation competent. These tissues can then be transformed with one or more nucleotide sequences of interest and selected for transgenic events having the nucleotide sequence of interest integrated within a chromosome derived from the recipient plant. Transformed cells can be selected and transgenic hybrid plants regenerated. The nucleotide sequence of interest can be introgressed into the genetic line from which the original recipient parent was derived, or into other genetic lines. Transformed plants and seeds are additionally provided.