Methods of plant breeding

Plant Breeding is the technique through which different plants are modified in several ways to get better results. It could be done to enrich the nutritional value of the plant, disease-resistant, temperature control, soil salinity, and even to improve the aesthetics. If one explores plant breeding, they can find that breeders often try to improve the food safety standard of their plants through it.

History of plant breeding

Plant breeding has been in practice since ancient times. Evidence shows that plant breeding in the production of cereal grains has been prevalent for a long time. Farmers were able to identify the high-performing plants in their fields and used their seeds to grow further crops.

Gregor Mendel, in the period of mid-1800s, supported the concept of heredity with the help of pea plants. This firmed the plant breeding even more. Around the early 20th century, the practice of enhancement of plants began to come into action.

Since then people have used selective methods of plant breeding to get efficient results. Early plant breeding was done to improve the economic importance of the crop. There were thousands of capital invested in the project, but due to the continuous breeding, most of the recombinant plants are not even able to survive in nature. They can only survive when in specific conditions. 

Role of Biotechnology in Plant Breeding

Biotechnology plays the biggest role possible in plant breeding. Biotechnology deals with different techniques in which genetic transfers are made to enrich the species and produce a better one. These days, even special techniques, such as vectors and other pathogens, are used to inject such genetic material into the host cell. A few most used techniques of plant breeding are:

• Selection: Progeny rows are developed using genetically distinct plants for observations. Then performance and yield are compared from other commercial plants. 
• Hybridisation: It follows a cross-pollination technique to combine desired traits from different plants. 
• Polyploidy: Chemicals are used to increase chromosome counts in plants. 
• Induced mutation: Radiations or chemicals are used to introduce plant mutation.

With better biotechnology procedures, the minerals and other special components required in the desired plant are inserted by special biological methods. All these methods belong to the microbiology section, and if one uses them in the right manner, there is a high possibility of getting the desired plant without a lot of loss of the natural extracts of the plant. 

Latest Advancements in the field of Plant Breeding 

There are tons of experiments going on with the field. For example, plant breeders have always combined different breeds to get better and higher-yielding plants. Some of the miraculous advancements in the field are:

• Better quality sugarcane production- The majority of sugarcane produced in the Indian region tends to have lower sugar content. Due to this their commercial demand is low as well. But using plant breeding, the combination with Saccharum Barberi, a south Indian sugarcane breed has been producing sugarcanes with greater sugar content with thicker stems. Hence, increasing the commercial value of the production.

• Development of different hybrids- Hybrids have also been very interesting due to plant breeding procedures. The Canga series of Maize and even the Bajra WCC-75 is among the newest developments. Even the special VaraLaxmi breed of Cotton is a very special one out there.

Environmental Stress

The biggest threat to your crop culture is environmental stress. The most important use-case plant breeding application comes into play here. If the breeding of the plants can be controlled in a specific way, one can increase their tolerance capacity. This means that the plant will no longer depend on a certain amount of water or a certain amount of soil salinity. Researchers have even managed to make plants grow without sunlight. Hence tackling environmental stress is the best plant breeding application.

Conclusion 

The plant breeding principle has evolved since the early ’80s. Plant breeding has been leading to the development of better plant breeds with numerous characteristics. The process of plant breeding is not something new. There are numerous methods and techniques of plant breeding these days that have improved the field of agriculture. Plant breeding deals with applying genetic recombination techniques to improve the quality and aesthetics of the plant. 

The plants are bred by picking up the best variants with the best output. Such processes improve the genetic composition and also the esthetic makeup of the plant. When such procedures are repeated, they can even destroy the original build-up of the plant.