Methods are provided for transforming freshly isolated, immature maize embryos and for producing transgenic maize plants. The methods comprise obtaining immature embryos from a maize plant, contacting the embryos with an auxin-depleted or phytohormone-depleted transformation support medium and introducing a nucleotide construct into cells from the embryos prior to subjecting the embryos to conditions which promote embryogenic-tissue formation. The methods additionally comprise identifying or selecting transformed cells and regenerating such cells into transformed maize plants.