Epigenetics: possible applications in climate-smart crop breeding

Epigenetics and Heterosis in Crop Plants

Heterosis refers to improved or altered performance observed in F1 hybrid organisms when compared to their parents. Heterosis has revolutionized agriculture by improving key agronomic traits in crop plants. However, even after decades of research in this area a unifying molecular theory of heterosis remains somewhat elusive. For many years it has been observed that the dominant, overdominant an...

Short survey Scaling-up crop models for climate variability applications$

Although most dynamic crop models have been developed and tested for the scale of a homogeneous plot, applications related to climate variability are often at broader spatial scales that can incorporate considerable heterogeneity. This study reviews issues and approaches related to applying crop models at scales larger than the plot. Perfect aggregate prediction at larger scales requires perfec...

Breeding Bees to the Crop

Forward and Reverse Genetics in Crop Breeding

The ability to identify, study, create and utilize genetic variation are arguably fundamental aspects in the development of human beings. Traditional, or forward , genetics has its roots in man’s fi rst attempts at the domestication of plants and animals. Novel and preferred traits such as the lack of seed shattering were selected from large populations and maintained for future propagation, le...

Editorial: Recent Advances of Epigenetics in Crop Biotechnology

Ever since the first Agricultural Revolution, humans have domesticated hundreds of plant species and it is considered that the evolution of crop plants took place as human behavioral ecology changed from food gathering to farming. As a result of wild species domestication, the selection of populations with desirable alleles, the breeding of high yielding genotypes, the ease of farming and quali...