Conventional and Contemporary Practices of Plant Breeding

This book covers some established conventional and recent advances in plant breeding methods. It highlights and treats in detail some breeding strategies not adequately handled or usually ignored in many plant breeding texts. There is in-depth coverage of plant resistance mechanisms to various stress factors and application of phenotyping, genotyping, bioinformatics, molecular markers, ‘omics’ technologies, biotechnology, transgenesis and gene editing in crop improvement. Topics like germplasm conservation, plant sex expression and pollination control, recurrent selection methods, interspecific hybridisation, pre-breeding, chromosome manipulation and breeding for resistance to diseases and insect pests are comprehensively covered.

The book gives special attention to some problems that affect food security in developing countries, e.g., parasitic weeds and drought and heat stress. Breeding for resistance to parasitic weeds like Striga, broomrapes and Cascuta is always ignored in most plant breeding texts. Where applicable, problems and challenges associated with some breeding strategies are highlighted and possible solutions proposed. The text is rich in relevant examples for various topics.

The book is suitable for teaching of plant breeding at the university level and is also beneficial to practising plant breeders. It brings together some relevant work and literary information that is useful to university lecturers, students and practising plant breeders. The book targets university students in agricultural and plant sciences, particularly those taking plant breeding as a key unit/course.