Question

Advances in plant breeding strategies: breeding, biotechnology and molecular tools

Answer 1

Thus far conventional plant breeding methods have been successfully used for sus-

tainable food production worldwide. Human population is increasing at an alarming

rate in developing countries, and food availability to feed the additional mouths

could gradually become a serious problem. Moreover, agriculture production is

being adversely affected as a result of environmental pollution, rapid industrializa-

tion, water scarcity, erosion of fertile topsoil, limited possibility of expanding arable

land, lack of improvement of local plant types, erosion of genetic diversity, and

dependence on a relatively few crop species for the world’s food supply. According

to FAO, 70 % more food must be produced over the next four decades to feed the

projected nine billion people by the year 2050. Only 30 plant species are used to

meet 95 % of the world’s food requirements, which are considered as the major

crops . The breeding programs of these crops have been very much dependent on the

ready availability of genetic variation, either spontaneous or induced. Plant breeders

and geneticists are under constant pressure to sustain and expand food production

by using innovative breeding strategies and introducing minor crops which are well

adapted to marginal lands and provide a source of nutrition as well as crops having

abiotic and biotic stress tolerances. In traditional breeding, introgression of one or a

few genes in a cultivar is carried out via backcrossing for several generations. Now,

new innovative additional plant breeding tools, including molecular breeding and

plant biotechnology, are available to plant breeders, which have a great potential to

be used along with the conventional breeding methods for sustainable agriculture.

With the development of new molecular tools such as genomics, molecular marker-

assisted backcrossing has made possible rapid introgression of transgenes, reduc-

tion of linkage drag, and manipulation of genetic variation for the development of

improved cultivars. For example, molecular breeding has great potential to become

a routine standard practice in the improvement of several crops. However, a multi-

disciplinary approach of traditional plant breeding, plant biotechnology, and molec-

ular biology would be strategically ideal for developing new improved crop varieties

worldwide to feed the world. This book highlights the recent progress in the devel-

opment of plant biotechnology, molecular tools, and their usage in plant breeding.



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