Applied Crop Improvement HRT 362

Lecture 1: What is plant breeding?

Topics of this lecture:

Discuss what plant breeders do. Describe what plant breeders have accomplished.

What do plant breeders do?

Locate useful genetic variability and assort it into new varieties

Examples of how wild plants have been improved by humans. The wild progenitor species are on the left.

Doebley, J.F., B.S. Gaut and B.D. Smith. 2006. Cell 127: 1309-1321

Where do breeders get genetic variability?

Easy to access
Improved varieties Heritage varieties Local varieties Compatible wild relatives
Compatible wild relatives carry more genetic variability than named varieties, but they also carry many negative traits.

The process of breeding has greatly reduced the genetic diversity of crops over time as we select only a few favored types each generation.
If we use colored dots to represent the amount of genetic diversity at different levels of domestication:

Wild species

Early domesticants

Modern varieties

So, using wild plants as breeding parents often makes sense to improve traits like environmental adaptation, disease resistance and flavor!

Fruit diversity in wild and local varieties of strawberries

California Rocky Mountains

Chile

Ecuador

Habitat diversity in wild strawberries

Rocky Mountains California

Ecuador

Rocky Mountains

All crops have wild relatives somewhere. Here are the locations where our crops were originally domesticated by people.

Maize Tomato Squash Cotton Beans Cassava Yam White Potato Sweet Potato

Wheat Barley Pea Lentil Flax

Hemp Peach Millet Tea Soybean

Cowpea Finger Millet Pearl Millet Rice Sorghum Yam

Rice Taro Yams Sugarcane Banana Eggplant

What are the other sources of genetic variability?

Easy to access Difficult to access
Distant relatives Induced mutations Non-relatives (GM crops)
Note! Small infertile pollen grains from a partially fertile hybrid of distantly related species

What are the other sources of genetic variability?

Easy to access Difficult to access
Distant relatives Induced mutations Non-relatives (GM crops)
Plant breeders prefer to work with more fertile, easy to access parents, but will use more distant relatives if they have no other source of variability for traits of interest!

What technologies are used by plant breeders?

Traditional
Emasculation, hybridization, selection, male sterility, statistics, tissue culture, chromosome doubling & triploidy

Biotechnological
Marker assisted breeding, mutagenesis, tissue culture, recombinant DNA techniques (GMO)
These technologies are covered in other modules!

What have plant breeders accomplished?

Fought hunger Made food healthier Improved crop resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses Adapted crops to specific production systems Diversified markets Developed new horticultural varieties

One breeder was particularly important: Norman Borlaug

Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for curbing hunger in Asia and other parts of the world.

Landmark achievements of Norman Borlaug Green Revolution

Increased wheat yield over 400% in Mexico in the 1960s and transferred the success to Pakistan, India and Turkey

Did the same thing with rice, first in the Philippines and then the rest of Asia

Interesting videos on this module:

Norman Borlaug, Green Revolution Pioneer

Recent Purdue plant breeder that won the world food prize

A couple more interesting videos

Agriculture is under pressure

Plant breeders help feed the world

What have plant breeders accomplished

Fought hunger Made food healthier Improved crop resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses Adapted crops to specific production systems Diversified markets Developed new horticultural varieties

Examples of breeding for enhanced nutritional composition

High lysine corn for improved nutrition High oleic acids in soybean High vitamin A rice (golden rice)

Some interesting videos on improving nutrition:

High oleic acid soybeans

Golden rice

What have plant breeders accomplished

Fought hunger Made food healthier Improved crop resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses Adapted crops to specific production systems Diversified markets Developed new horticultural varieties

Examples of breeding for improved adaptation:

Salt and drought tolerance Cold tolerance Disease and insect resistance Photoperiod insensitive cultivars
http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/ricebreedingcourse/Breeding_for_salt_tolerance.htm

Some interesting videos on improving adaptations:

Plant breeding solves disease problems

Cold hardy grapes feed local wine industry

What have plant breeders accomplished?

Fought hunger Made food healthier Improved crop resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses Adapted crops to specific production systems Diversified markets Developed new horticultural varieties

Breeding for specific production systems

Rain-fed or irrigated agriculture Mechanized vs. nonmechanized Rice upland vs. paddy Organic insect and disease resistance

Blueberry harvestor

What have plant breeders accomplished?

Fought hunger Made food healthier Improved crop resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses Adapted crops to specific production systems Diversified markets Developed new horticultural varieties

Diversified markets
Table vs wine grapes Potatoes for chips vs. baking Blueberries for cereal vs. pies

Interesting videos on diversifying crop markets:

Technology in grape breeding

Fields of study: Pepper breeding

What have plant breeders accomplished

Fought hunger Made food healthier Improved crop resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses Adapted crops to specific production systems Diversified markets Developed new horticultural varieties

Developed new horticultural varieties

New colors, sizes and shapes in ornamental cultivars Fruits and vegetables with superior yield, nutritional qualities and general appeal
http://www.calla-lily.com/images/picante.gif

Some interesting videos on developing new varieties:

Breeding apples at University of Minnesota

Plant breeding with Jim Ault

Future of plant breeding?

A little scary!
Total number of trained plant breeders is diminishing, while demand is increasing Number of public plant breeders has gone down
It is a great time to become a plant breeder!

An interesting video on the future of plant breeding:

Future of plant breeding

The end !
Recommended next: Principles of inheritance