Organic farming prohibits the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) inasmuch as their genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally. In actual fact, there is a conventional identity between GMOs and transgenic organisms, so that genetic modification methods such as somatic hybridization and mutagenesis are equalized to conventional breeding. A loophole in this ...

Sorghum is a versatile crop used for energy production, human and animal feedings, raw material industry. The grain sorghum the fifth most important cereal worldwide, Brazil one of top 10 producers. In last 40 years, yield in has increased to 32.70 kg ha-1 year -1. Although this clear evolution, much remains be done, breeders still face several challenges. This review discusses main characteris...

Plant breeding has a long history of developing varieties with desirable traits in response to the needs of both growers and consumers. Although the bases for most of these traits are not known genetically or biochemically, conventional breeding combines these multiple traits to create new hybrids and stable varieties that are safe and not generally subject to safety assessment. With the advent...

Ovine meat production in France, which is continually regressing due to economic difficulties, is based on two main production systems. The first system is located in plains in which one part of the lambs born in the spring are fed grass, and the other part of the lambs are from out of the season parturitions following hormonal treatments and are fattened in sheep houses. The second system is r...

Alongside other aspects of agriculture, plant breeding is pivotal to securing crop yields necessary to meet the growing demands for human food and animal feed. In addition to the important targets of yield, nutritional quality and resilience to abiotic stresses, breeding for resistance to pests and diseases will become even more critical as the availability of plant protection products is furth...

Background Genomic selection (GS) involves selection decisions based on genomic breeding values estimated as the sum of the effects of genome-wide markers capturing most QTLs for the target trait(s). GS is revolutionizing breeding practice for complex trait in domestic animals. The same approach and concepts can be readily applied to forest tree breeding. Trees also have long generation times a...

The sex of a bird can, in principle, affect exposure and accumulation of mercury. One conventional explanation for sex differences in mercury burden suggests female birds should have lower concentrations than conspecific males, because breeding females can depurate methylmercury to their eggs. However, sex differences in body burden of mercury among birds are not consistent. We used meta-analys...

Potato ( L.) breeders consider a large number of traits during cultivar development and progress in conventional breeding can be slow. There is accumulating evidence that some of these traits, such as yield, are affected by a large number of genes with small individual effects. Recently, significant efforts have been applied to the development of genomic resources to improve potato breeding, cu...

There is empirical evidence that genotypes differ not only in mean, but also in environmental variance of the traits they affect. Genetic heterogeneity of environmental variance may indicate genetic differences in environmental sensitivity. The aim of this study was to develop a general framework for prediction of breeding values and selection responses in mean and environmental variance with g...