Sheel Yadav & Shashi Meena

The human population is estimated to increase to about 10 billion by 2050. To be able to feed this large number, more efficient agricultural production systems have to be devised. This herculean task cannot be possibly achieved by any one technology; instead, it requires an integrated approach that focuses on improving crop productivity, minimising land and water degradation, restoring soil fertility, farm mechanisation and preventing or minimising post-harvest losses.

Today, with the massive progress made in the field of genomics, crop improvement for target traits has not only become faster but more efficient too. Genomic tools have equipped plant breeders with the know-how for the precise selection of genomic regions for improvement.

Humans have always been in search of superior crop varieties with desirable traits and the selection of these superior genotypes led to the development of new and improved varieties over a period of many years. Thus, the endeavour for crop improvement has been an ongoing process. In recent times, crop improvement for higher yields, biotic and abiotic stress resistance have been the major goals of plant breeders over the past many decades.

A simple selection that involved choosing a desirable offspring was the first method of breeding that relied on the presence of natural variation in the population as a result of spontaneous mutations. For instance, selection of varieties with non-shattering nature was perhaps one of the first traits to be selected for/against during domestication. For most cultivated plant species, seed shattering is an undesirable feature. Therefore, during domestication, plant genotypes that retained their seeds and thereby showed reduced yield losses were selected. This led to the evolution of new modern-day crop varieties with a non-shattering trait…read more on NOPR