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...

Early blight (EB) is one of the dreadful diseases of tomato caused by several species of Alternaria including Alternaria linariae (which includes A. solani and A. tomatophila), as well as A. alternata. In some instances, annual economic yield losses due to EB have been estimated at 79%. Alternaria are known only to reproduce asexually, but a highly-virulent isolate has the potential to overcome...

Although mastitis in cattle is an important factor for dairy economy and animal welfare and although udder health parameters have a substantial genetic variability, in many countries there is little or no improvement of udder health in the conventional commercial breeding programs. Strategies implementing information about Quantitative trait loci (QTL) via genetic marker information seem to off...

animal models are used to model the observations of animal performance that are genetically dependent.these models are considered as generalized linear mixed models and the genetic correlation structure of data is considered through random effects of breeding values. one goal of the mentioned models is to estimate variance components. in this research, an approximate bayesian approach presented...

Received Mar 10, 2016 Revised Apr 25, 2016 Accepted May 15, 2016 Rice is staple food for half of the world. With a population of almost 9.6 billion by the year 2050, there is a dire need of developing techniques to improve the crop plants, not only in terms of better yield but also to withstand harsh environmental conditions and stresses like drought, temperature, flood and salinity. Salinity i...

Since its beginning agriculture has achieved considerable progress mainly because of the development of Genetics and corresponding applications on genetic manipulation techniques. Almost all improvement obtained so far has been due to the so-called conventional techniques. Modern Biotechnology contributed to new techniques to further increase genetic manipulation. Cultivated area of transgenic ...

Coconut palm (Cocos nucifera,2n = 32), a member of genus Cocos and family Arecaceae (Palmaceae), is an important tropical fruit and oil crop. Currently, coconut palm is cultivated in 93 countries, including Central and South America, East and West Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, with a total growth area of more than 12 million hectares [1]. Coconut palm is generally classified i...

source of complete resistance is known, and current sources provide only partial resistance. Fusarium head blight (FHB), caused by Fusarium graminearum The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Schwabe [teleomorph Gibberella zeae (Schwein.)], also known as scab, is a destructive disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum L; T. turcurrently ranks FHB as the worst plant disease of wheat gidum L...

Extensive genetic progress has been achieved in dairy cattle populations on many traits of economic importance because of efficient breeding programmes. Success of these programmes has relied on progeny testing of the best young males to accurately assess their genetic merit and hence their potential for breeding. Over the last few years, the integration of dense genomic information into statis...

The increased occurrence and severity of drought stress have led to a high yield decline in rice in recent years in drought-affected areas. Drought research at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) over the past decade has concentrated on direct selection for grain yield under drought. This approach has led to the successful development and release of 17 high-yielding drought-toleran...