Human population growth and potentially irreversible climate changes have raised worldwide concerns regarding food and nutritional security. Plant breeding that once considered "art and science for changing and improving the characteristics of plants" is now heavily dependent on biotechnologies. The endeavor is a continuous process which results in new varieties required by farmers to improve their crop yields and quality of the produce. On the other hand, in the current scenarios of challenging environmental impact, there is emergence of new insect-pests and new pathotypes of disease causing agents. Accordingly what used to be minor insect-pests/pathogens are rapidly becoming major biotic stress factors. Along with heat and drought, they pose serious threats to crop productivity in many parts of the world. Current WTO analysis reveals that farmers want new high yielding varieties suitable not only for local consumption but also for commercial export. Conventional breeding approaches at this juncture seem inadequate to meet the growing demand for superior varieties. Efficiency improvement of existing cultivars is one way to meet these challenges. Historically, plant improvement has been largely confined to improving yield, quality, resistance to diseases and insect-pests and tolerance to abiotic stresses. Now growers demand high yielding varieties that possess early maturity, higher harvest index, dual purpose forages, varieties with nutrient-use efficiency/water-use efficiency, wider adaptability, suitable for mechanized harvesting, better shelf life, better processing quality, with improved minerals, vitamins, amino acids, proteins, antioxidants and bioactive compounds. Conventional plant breeding methods aiming at the improvement of a self-pollinating crop, such as wheat, usually take 10-12 years to develop and release of the new variety. During the past 10 years, significant advances have been made and accelerated methods have been developed for precision breeding and early release of crop varieties.

This multi-volume work summarizes concepts dealing with germplasm enhancement and development of improved varieties based on innovative methodologies that include recent omics approaches, marker assisted selection, marker assisted background selection, genome wide association studies, next generation sequencing, genetic mapping, genomic selection, high-throughput genotyping, high-throughput phenotyping, mutation breeding, reverse breeding, transgenic breeding, speed breeding, genome editing, etc. It is an important reference with special focus on accelerated development of improved forage crop varieties.

Autorentext

Dr. Shabir Hussain Wani received his PhD in Genetics and Plant Breeding from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and edited 36 books on plant stress physiology, including 10 with Springer. He served as a Review Editor for Frontiers in Plant Science from 2015 to 2018. He has received several awards from International and national reputed scholarly societies.He is currently an Assistant Professor Genetics and Plant Breeding at the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural, Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Srinagar in India.

Dr. Satbir Singh Gosal is Vice Chancellor and former Director of Research at Punjab Agricultural University, India. He was an Honorary Member of the Board of Assessors (Australian Research Council, Canberra), Biotechnology Career Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, USA, and President of the Punjab Academy of Sciences. He has published more than 300 research papers in refereed journals and 35 book chapters. He has co-authored one textbook and co-edited 6 Books with SpringerNature.