Plant breeding for resilient pastures

Ryegrass in pastures – breeding for resilience

The suggestion that modern pasture cultivars persist less well than their predecessors is not supported by facts. However in some regions there is a crisis in farmer experience of persistence of ryegrass pastures, and ryegrass breeding can contribute to a resolution. This paper considers the turnover of tillers in a pasture, the population structure of a grass sward and the involvement of endop...

Plant Breeding and Genetics

Evolution of plant breeding

Plant breeding is considered one of the longest ongoing activities undertaken by humans, who select plants more productive and useful to themselves and the animals for at least 10,000 years ago. The evolution of civilizations paralleled the success of plant breeding, although this has not been recognized by the public. The reason may be lack of understanding of what plant breeding encompasses. ...

Accelerated plant breeding

The time to develop new cultivars and introduce them into cultivation is an issue of major importance in plant breeding. This is because plant breeders have an urgent need to help provide solutions to feed a growing world population, while in parallel, time savings are linked to profitability. Plant breeding processes may in general be broken down into the following five key elements: (1) germp...

Genomics and Plant Breeding

The recent announcements of the breakthroughs in obtaining the oil palm genome sequence map herald a new chapter in oil palm genetic improvement. These breakthroughs will spur the further development of oil palm genomics. This article examines how genomics would impact plant and oil palm breeding. The knowledge derived from genomics research in terms of the DNA structure of a gene, how it funct...