This chapter deals with breeding aspects of one of the most important crops for food security in the world. Initially it shows how diverse rice is with 22 species, different levels of ploidy and six diversity groups. The choice of parents for crossing, when having such wide genetic diversity available, requires careful characterization and evaluation of the germplasm as well as good knowledge a...

Emslie While it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when selection indices were first used in the poultry breeding industry, it is generally recognized that “in the late 1940s. . . a few of the breeders began to develop poultry breeding as a business” (Hunton, 1990). Certainly by the mid-50’s, progressive poultry egg breeders were applying index and complex breeding strategies to their selection p...