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Plant Breeding
Plant breeding is an ancient art and modern science.
From the earliest origins of agriculture, people
consciously or subconsciously saved seeds from plants
with desirable traits in a natural population*
and
used them to plant the next generation, a process called
selection.
Gradually, after a number of generations of
repeated selection, most of the plants in the population
will have the desired traits.
For this to be effective,
there must be genetic variation*
for the traits
being selected. Genetic variation can be obtained by
identifying naturally varying types and by making
controlled sexual crosses by transferring pollen*
from one plant to the pistil*
of another to create
seeds carrying traits (controlled by genes*) from
two or many parents.
The progeny*
seeds can be
planted and the resulting plants carrying the desired
traits from both parents can be selected. In this
manner, the desirable traits from two or more plants can
be combined into single plants which can be further
selected and propagated*. Plant breeding is the
process of repeatedly sampling or generating genetic
variation, selecting desirable plants, fixing the traits
and propagating plant materials.
Our understanding of genetic inheritance*
at the whole organism and cellular*
levels has allowed us to create the vast
diversity of foods, feed and fiber crops grown today.
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Natural population |
a population of plants growing in
the wild |
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Genes |
units of inheritance that are
encoded in an organism’s DNA |
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Genetic variation |
differences for a trait that are
passed from one generation to
another |
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Pistil |
the female part of a flower that
grows into a fruit containing seeds. |
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Pollen |
structures that carry the male
genetic material and fertilize the
egg cells to create embryos inside
seeds |
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Progeny |
the descendants of a plant |
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Propagate |
to reproduce |
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Genetic inheritance |
the transfer of traits from female
and male parents to their
descendants |
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Cell |
the fundamental building block of living tissues |
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