Plant breeders choose good quality plants with disease-resistant capabilities and a high yield. These plants are then crossed or propagated with more minor good crops to improve their variety. It requires some special skills to perform this task. Moreover, plant breeding also involves the betterment of seeds which eventually leads to better plants.
The desired characters are now transmitted through generations, and the plant evolves. Evolution is essential for every living being for better survival on the planet.
It can become in practice by selecting the plant with desired traits and propagating it with others. Gardeners, professional breeders, government sectors or other universities use these techniques. International agencies believe that the production of new crops are necessary to meet food security and demand for the future.
Methods of Plant Breeding
In Cross-Pollinated Plants
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Controlled-Breeding Procedures- The plant breeders ensure no other pollen reaches the stigma in controlled-breeding procedures. They control the pollination mechanism, and only the desired pollen can reach the stigma. The flower has a covering of plastic bags to protect the entry of any pollen in it. When the stigma of the flower becomes receptive, the desired pollen is introduced manually to the stigma. This can be by bursting an anther over the stigma. The flowers are again covered with muslin cloth bags or paper bags.
In Self-Pollinated Plants
It becomes harder to perform the controlled breeding procedure in self-pollinated plants. Therefore other techniques are used. These techniques are as follows-
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Mass Selection- In this process, seeds of different desirable crops are mixed and sown together. The process has been prevalent since ancient times in improving the land varieties. This process has the simple aim of eradication of less useful or recessive crops. The dominating or better crops are left. Now, the seeds of these better crops are sown for the next generation. It is a straightforward test that does not require much expense. Therefore, this test is used on plants with less economic importance.
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Pure-line Selection- It is a technique in which many plants are selected from a self-pollinated crop and then individually harvested. Now, their progenies are evaluated to find the best progeny showing homogeneity of traits. This best progeny is now referred to as a pure-line variety. The pure-line plants have the same characteristics in the next generations.
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Hybridization- It is the process of the fusion of desirable traits among different plants. The plants with desirable characteristics such as disease resistance are selected and fused with other better plants. This results in much superior progeny than the parent plant.
Significance of Plant Breeding
Plant Breeding or hydridisation is a critical process in our life to fulfill the needs of food and other plant products. The main objectives of this process are as follows-
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Increase of Yield- A continuous increase in population has led to increased demand for food and other plant products. The primitive methods of agriculture cannot meet the requirements of the present time. Thus, various techniques are present to increase the yield of crops to the maximum. For this, the breeders use different variants of crops. Such as, in the case of rice, a dwarf early maturing variant is under cultivation. This variant gives a high yield and meets the current requirement. Moreover, scientists continuously work to get more yield out of every crop.
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Evaluation of Plants- Plant breeders can decide the traits they want in the next generation and the traits they want to eliminate. The traits such as disease-resistant, high yield, more nutrition are selected over other plants. The plants which lack these qualities get eliminated within a certain period after regular breeding.
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Increase in Nutritional Value- Breeding techniques involve processes through which the nutritional value of food multiplies. The increase in nutritional value can be by using analytical chemistry and rumen fermentation technology. They aim to produce foods with better digestible properties.
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Environmental stressors- Many places on earth have highly harsh climatic conditions. Therefore, the food production in those areas is minimal. Scientists have developed numerous techniques to overcome this condition. The strains of crops resistant to harsh conditions are first identified. After its identification, these crops can help in developing resistant varieties. These varieties can survive in drought conditions as well as in lesser nitrogen. Thus, the breeding of plants ensures food security in certain extreme parts of earth too.
Generally, it is almost impossible to grow crops in countries with extreme winters like Iceland and Germany. However, plant breeders have developed various techniques for growing crops in snow-covered areas.
Genetic Modifications
In genetic modifications, the genes of the plants are modified or altered by modern technologies to develop desirable characters. A specific desirable gene may be added to the plant to produce certain characters. This plant under experiment is the transgenic plant. A gene may be added or subtracted as per the requirement. For this, a promoter and a terminator are necessary. The promoter initiates transcription of the gene, whereas the terminator stops the transcription process.
The genetic modification enables plants to become disease-resistant or insect resistant.
Conclusion
Plant breeding is a very important process in crop management. It ensures our plants’ betterment and provides food security to the country. Only a small proportion of the entire population works in agriculture. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt better practices to produce more crops. Breeding techniques have been prevalent since ancient times.
Modern technologies provide many new techniques that ensure food security and the betterment of seeds.