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

Current Role of Biotechnology in Crop Improvement

• Some of the applications of biotechnology that are currently being used in crop production are shown below.
• The fact that a whole plant can be regenerated from a single cell, explant, or organ makes tissue culture a valuable technique to proliferate genetically identical material and select interesting variants for commercial purposes.
• Totipotency, which states that cells are autonomic and, in principle, capable of regenerating to give a complete new plant, also allows a genetic change, made at the cellular level, to become an established traits of a whole plant.
• The newly introduced or selected trait can, subsequently, be passed on to future generations of the species by conventional breeding methods.
• Tissue culture is particularly important for vegetatively propagated crop species since it reduces the labour associated with line maintenance and Germplasm conservation.
• The micropropagation is also used for the exchange of disease-free plant material. Anther or pollen culture also facilitates in early achievement of homozygosity, and is particularly useful to breed for recessive traits.