Breeding of Vegetable, Spice and Tuber crops (2+1)

Syllabus

Theory
Centres of origin, plant biodiversity and its conservation. Modes of reproduction, pollination systems and genetics of important vegetable, tuber and spice crops. Self incompatibility and male sterility, their classification and application in crop improvement. Principles of breeding in self-pollinated crops, pure line selection, mass selection, heterosis breeding, hybridization, pedigree method, mass pedigree method, bulk method, modified bulk method, single seed descent method and back cross method. Heterosis breeding. Polyploidy breeding. Mutation breeding. Principles of breeding cross pollinated crops, mass selection, recurrent selection, synthetics and composits. Application of biotechnology in crop improvement.
Crops: Solanaceous vegetables, Cole crops, cucurbits, bulb crops, tuber crops, leafy vegetables, okra, leguminous vegetables and spice crops.
Practical
Floral biology and pollination mechanism in self and cross pollinated vegetables, tuber crops and spices. Working out phenotypic and genotypic variability, heritability, genetic advance, genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficient, hybrid vigour, working out di, dii, diii. Preparation and uses of chemical and physical mutagens. Polyploidy breeding and chromosomal studies. Techniques of F1 hybrid seed production. Maintenance of breeding records.