Plant Breeding: Fundamentals and Applications

Contents: 1. Plant breeding and its objectives. 2. Centers of origin. 3. Crop genetic resources and introduction. 4. Apomixis in plant breeding. 5. Male sterility and it’s role in agriculture. 6. Self-incompatibility and its applications. 7. Pollination in plants. 8. Hybridization techniques. 9. Breeding methods for self pollinated crops. 10. Breeding methods for cross-pollinated crops. 11. Botany of some important crops. 12. Heterosis, inbreeding and system of mating. 13. Hybrid and synthetic varieties. 14. Breeding methods for vegetatively propagated crops. 15. Mutation breeding. 16. Polyploidy breeding. 17. Abiotic stresses (drought). 18. Disease resistance. 19. Variety release procedure. 20. Classes of seed. 21. Crop ideotypes. 22. Plant tissue culture. 23. Genetic engineering. 24. Molecular markers. 25. Marker assisted selection and quantitative trait loci. 26. Intellectual property right (IPR). 27. Biometry. 28. Questions and answers.

Plant breeders employ a variety of techniques to improve the genetic composition of the crop and a successful strategy is dependent on the physical, physiological and hereditary characteristics of the plant.