Breeding of Fruit and Plantation Crops 2 + 1

Fruit Breeding

Fruit breeding is the manipulation of a biological system that requires many generations to achieve result. It is also a dynamic, exciting and challenging profession, operating under continually changing conditions.
Major problems in fruit breeding

• Most of the fruit crops have long generation cycle of 2-10 years depending upon species and cultivars and hence more recombinations are not possible.
• Fruit crops have long juvenile period and making it difficult for early assessment of strains e.g. mango, Madhuka latifolia, jack fruit etc.
• Majority of the fruit species are highly heterozygous, requiring large populations for an effective selection
• Most fruit species are polyploidy in nature e.g. ber, banana etc.
• Polyembryony nature of fruit species e.g. citrus, mango
• Presence of parthenocarpy and seedlessness e.g. banana, pineapple etc.
• Presence of sexual incompatibility e.g. mango, apple, pear, loquat etc.
• More number of chromosome hinders genetic analysis e.g. ber, mulberry.
• Excessive fruit drop e.g. mango, citrus, grape etc
• Presence of single seed in most of the cases warrants more number of crosses e.g. mango, litchi, mahua etc.