Scientific and Technological Interventions For Attaining Precision in Plant Genetics and Breeding - Scientific and Technological Interventions For Attaining Precision in Plant Genetics and Breeding - Open Access Pub

The scientific and technological interventions for attaining precision in plant genetics and breeding since Mendel’s discovery of genetic laws have been critically reviewed in terms of cloning technology and reverse genetics, chip technology, genetically modified organisms and CRISPR-based gene editing technology. Their roles in further refining the plant genetics and breeding practices particularly their exploitation in creating variations and their use for development of superior genotypes in model crops like wheat and rice have been discussed. It is stressed how such interventions could prove to be promising for meeting future crop improvement program in terms of climate change, bio-fortification, imaging technology, statistics, big data revolution and deep learning. DOI10.14302/issn.2639-3166.jar-18-1987 For ages since the domestication of agriculture about 10,000 years ago plant breeding was regarded as an art rather than a science to manipulate the crop species for improving their characteristics to benefit production. Breeders were using methods to improve the economic traits like yield etc. by selection and hybridization to incorporate desirable traits from one variety to another. However their success was limited due to the fact that whatever variation they exploited was derived from wild relatives with scant natural variation. They practiced a form of mass selection in which plants of superior phenotype were selected and seeds of such plants were planted during the next season. Without knowing the genetic basis of such practices the approach was hit and trial in getting superior progeny generation. This led to varieties which are now termed as landraces – locally adopted lines in a particular region. Today plant breeding is a full-fledged science with the ability to create variation according to their needs as well as to expedite the breeding process considerably to evolve new varieties. Behind this progress lies the scientific and technological interventions like fundamental discoveries of Mendel’s gene in garden peas in 1900, phenomena of linkage and crossing over in 1910, production of mutation by X-rays in 1920, double-helix DNA in 1953, recombinant DNA technology, transgenesis and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in 1970s including cloning technology and reverse genetics, epigenetic modifications due to DNA methylation and histone proteins, mapping of genes for quantitative traits with the help of markers and marker-assisted selection in 1980s, capability to sequence the whole genome in 2010s and lately CRISPR-based gene editing