Proper design of a breeding program has been an issue of primary concern in much animal breeding research during the last decade. Data Mining (DM) is a powerful paradigm for nding patterns that can be used to predict the productivity of progeny given information about their sire, dam and the environment. The more accurate the discovered patterns, the more genetic gain one can achieve in a breed...

Micronutrients are known to play an important role in the metabolism and physiological activities of the human body. Unfortunately, over three billion people in the world are malnourished. The development of crops with enhanced mineral concentration is one of the most sustainable and cost effective approaches for alleviating micronutrient malnutrition. This review focuses on the progress made i...

The demand for special breeding programmes for organic pig meat production is based on the assumption that pigs kept under organic conditions need different biological properties compared with conventionally kept pigs in order to achieve a good performance. This would mean that genotype-environment interactions exist. Therefore, 682 pigs of seven different genotypes were tested for growth perfo...

Background: Presynchronization could enhance fertility in timed breeding programs. The best presynchronization method has to justify biological requirements and to provide practical and economic advantages. OBJECTIVES: Present study investigated the effectiveness of presynchronization with equine chorionic gonadotropin (eCG) before ovsynch (eCG-ovsynch) compared to conventional presynch-ovsynch...

Maize is an important crop for food, feed, forage, and fuel across tropical and temperate areas of the world. Diversity studies at genetic, molecular, and functional levels have revealed that, tropical maize germplasm, landraces, and wild relatives harbor a significantly wider range of genetic variation. Among all types of markers, SNP markers are increasingly the marker-of-choice for all genom...

Biotechnology can offer useful tools to complement conventional breeding programs. The techniques of in vitro selection, that exploit phenomenon, called somaclonal variation, by screening cell cultures for resistance to herbicides, different types of stress or diseases, already helped to obtain tolerant lines of flax (Linum usitatissimum), which were used in further commercial breeding programs...

Literatures have reported that a lot of drought related genes were cloned and individual gene showed positive effects under controlled stress experiments, but were not much effective in the field. Although, the progresses by conventional breeding approaches were achievable as some drought varieties have been released to the farmers in the recent years but this is not adequate to cope up with th...

Current trends in population growth and consumption patterns continue to increase the demand for wheat, a key cereal for global food security. Further, multiple abiotic challenges due to climate change and evolving pathogen and pests pose a major concern for increasing wheat production globally. Triticeae species comprising of primary, secondary, and tertiary gene pools represent a rich source ...

Bacterial Leaf Blight (BLB) is the most devastating disease of rice. This disease can reduce grain production by 20-50% . Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae, the causal agent of bacterial leaf blight (BLB) of rice was characterized through pathogenecity and biochemical assays.The development of resistant cultivars has been the most effective and economical strategy to control bacterial leaf blight (...

Mortality due to cannibalism is a major problem in laying hens. Due to prohibition of beak-trimming in the European Union, this problem will increase in the near future. One solution to reduce mortality due to cannibalism is to use genetic selection. Mortality due to cannibalism, however, differs from conventional breeding traits, because it depends on social interactions among individuals. Sel...