Milestones in Plant Breeding


Selected milestones in plant breeding
    • 9000 bc First evidence of plant domestication in the hills above the Tigris river.
    • 3000 bc- Domestication of all important food crops in the Old World.
    • 1000 bc- Domestication of all important food crops in the New World.
    • 700 bc -Assyrians and Babylonians hand pollinated date palms.
    • 1694 -Camerarius demonstrated sex in plants and suggested crossing as a method to obtain new planttypes.
    • 1716- Mather of USA observed natural crossing in maize.
    • 1719- Fairchild created first artificial hybrid of dianthus sp. (Carnation × Sweet williams).
    • 1727- Vilmorin introduced the concept of progeny testing i.e Vilmorin isolation principle.
    • 1753- Linnaeus published Species plantarium. Binomial nomenclature was born.
    • 1761–1766 Koelreuter of Germany demonstrated that hybrid offspring received traits from both parents and were intermediate in most traits; produced first scientific hybrid using tobacco.
    • 1847- “Reid’s Yellow Dent” maize was developed.
    • 1866- Mendel published his discoveries in Experiments in plant hybridization, culminating in inheritance and discovery of unit factors (genes).
    • 1899- Hopkins described the ear-to-row selection method of breeding in maize.
    • 1908–1909 Hardy of England and Weinberg of Germany developed the law of equilibrium of populations.
    • 1908–Nilsson Ehle proposed the concept of multiple factor hypotheses.
    • 1909 -Shull conducted extensive research to develop inbreds to produce hybrids of maize.
    • 1917 -Jones developed first commercial hybrid maize.
    • 1926 -Pioneer Hi-bred corn company established as first seed company.
    • 1934- Dustin discovered colchicines.
    • 1935- Vavilov published The scientific basis of plant breeding.
    • 1940 -Harlan used the bulk breeding selection method in breeding.
    • 1944- Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty discovered DNA is hereditary material.
    • 1945- Hull proposed recurrent selection method of breeding.
    • 1950 -McClintock discovered the Ac-Ds system of transposable elements.
    • 1953- Watson, Crick, and Wilkins proposed a model for DNA structure.
    • 1970- Borlaug received Nobel Prize for the Green Revolution.
    • Berg, Cohen, and Boyer introduced the recombinant DNA technology.
    • 1994 -“Flavr Savr” tomato developed as first genetically modified food produced for the market.
    • 1995- Bt corn developed.
    • 1996- Roundup Ready® soybean introduced.
    • 2004- Roundup Ready® wheat developed.

Last modified: Sunday, 11 March 2012, 7:25 AM