Contents: Foreword. Preface. Acknowledgement. History of Plant Breeding. Centre of Origin. Part. I: Cereals. 1. Rice. 2. Wheat. 3. Maize. 4. Sorghum. 5. Finger Millet. 6. Pearl Millet. 7. Fox Tail Millet. 8. Kodo Millet. 9. Proso Millet. Part. II: Pulses. 10. Red Gram. 11. Black Gram (Urd, Ulundu). 12. Green Gram (Mung Bean). 13. Horse Gram. 14. Soy Bean. 15. Cowpea. Part. III: Oil Seeds. 16. Lab Lab. 17. Ground Nut (Monkey Nut, Peanut). 18. Till. 19. Mustard and Rape Seed. 20. Castor. 21. Sunflower. 22. Safflower. 23. Niger. Part. IV: Fibre Crops. 24. Cotton. 25. Jute. 26. Mesta (Bimli Jute). Part. V: Forage Grass. 27. Breeding Forage Crops. 28. Forage Grasses. 29. Tapioca (Cassava). Part. VI: Sugar Crops. 30. Sugar Cane. 31. Sugar Beet. 32. Sweet Potato. Part. VII: Tuber Crops. 33. Potato. Part. VIII: Breeding For Qualitative Characters. 34. Breeding for Insect Resistance. 35. Breeding for Disease Resistance. 36. Breeding for Abiotic Stress Resistance. 37. Breeding for Quality Characters. 38. Seed Multiplication and Released of a Variety. Part. IX: Salient Points of Hybrid Seed Production of Field Crop. 39. Salient Points of Hybrid Seed Production of Field Crops. 40. Hybrid Seed Production in Sunflower. Appendices. Index.
It is a text book and it comprises of chapters with field crops grown in India in different states of the country following principles, procedure of breeding and problems in breeding of field crops in India. It has cereals, pulses, oil seeds, fibre crops, forage crops and general breeding methodologies and particular steps involved in breeding of disease resistant crops, pest resistant crops, abiotic stress resistant crops, tools involved in hybrid seed production etc. the chapters of each crop has short, lucid, point by point approach beginning from its origin, wild relatives, classification of different species, floral biology, anthesis and pollination, breeding objectives, parentage of different popular varieties in India, their duration, distant hybridization, detail different methods of breeding, quality assessment of different crops like oil percentage of oil seed crops, ginning percentage of cotton, detail methodology of hybrid seed production of cotton, rice, maize, castor, sunflower etc.
