Principles of Plant Breeding (2+1)

Hardy-Weinberg Law

Introduction
• Cross pollinated crops are highly heterozygous due to the free inter mating among them so these are random mating populations. Because each individual of the population has equal opportunity of mating with any other individual. It is also known as mendalian/panmictic population. A mendalian population may be thought of having a gene pool consisting of all gametes produced by the population. So gene pool may be defined as the sum total of all genes presentin the population. A population consists of all such individuals that share the same gene pool has an opportunity to inter mate with each other and contribute to the next generation of the population.

• Each generation of a mendalian population may be considered to arise from a random sample of gametes from the gene pool of previous generation. Hence, it is not easy to follow the inheritance of a gene in a mendalian population. It cannot be estimated by using the techniques of classical genetics. So tounderstand the genetic makeup of such population a population genetics has been developed.