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Section 1 Overview and historical perspectives
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 History of plant breeding
It is informative for students of plant breeding to have a historical perspective of the discipline. Understanding the timeline of advances in one's discipline is instructive in itself. It helps the student to put current advances in plant breeding in the proper perspective, appreciating the challenges and opportunities along the way as professionals contributed to knowledge in the discipline.
Purpose and expected outcomes
Agriculture is the deliberate planting and harvesting of plants and herding animals. This human invention has and continues to impact society and the environment. Plant breeding is a branch of agriculture that focuses on manipulating plant heredity to develop new and improved plant types for use by society. People in society are aware and appreciative of the enormous diversity in plants and plant products. They have preferences for certain varieties of flowers and food crops. They are aware that whereas some of this variation is natural, humans with special expertise (plant breeders) create some of it. Also, there is a general perception that such creations derive from crossing different plants. This introductory chapter is devoted to presenting a brief overview of plant breeding, including its benefits to society and some historical perspectives. After completing this chapter, the student should have a general understanding of:
1 The need and importance of plant breeding to society.
2 The goals of plant breeding.
3 The art and science of plant breeding.
4 Trends in plant breeding as an industry.
5 Selected milestones and accomplishments of plant breeders.
6 The future of plant breeding in society.
1.1 What is plant breeding?
Plant breeding is a deliberate effort by humans to nudge nature, with respect to the heredity of plants, to an advantage. The changes made in plants are permanent and heritable. The professionals who conduct this task are called plant breeders. This effort at adjusting the status quo is instigated by a desire of humans to improve certain aspects of plants to perform new roles or enhance existing ones. Consequently, the term “plant breeding” is often used synonymously with “plant improvement” in modern society. It needs to be emphasized that the goals of plant breeding are focused and purposeful. Even though the phrase “to breed plants” often connotes the involvement of the sexual process in effecting a desired change, modern plant breeding also includes the manipulation of asexually reproducing plants (plants that do not reproduce through the sexual process). Breeding is hence about manipulating plant attributes, structure, and composition to make them more useful to humans. It should be mentioned at the onset that it is not every plant character or trait that is readily amenable to manipulation by breeders. However, as technology advances, plant breeders are increasingly able to accomplish astonishing plant manipulations – needless to say not without controversy, as is the case involving the development and application of biotechnology to plant genetic manipulation. One of the most controversial of these modern technologies is transgenesis, the technology by which gene transfer is made across natural biological barriers.
Plant breeders specialize in breeding different groups of plants. Some focus on field crops (e.g. soybean, cotton), horticultural food crops (e.g. vegetables), ornamentals (e.g. roses, pine trees), fruit trees (e.g. citrus, apple), forage crops (e.g. alfalfa, grasses), or turf species (e.g. Bluegrass, fescue). More importantly, breeders tend to specialize in or focus on specific species in these groups (e.g. corn breeder, potato breeder). This way, they develop the expertise that enables them to be most effective in improving the species of their choice. The principles and concepts discussed in this book are generally applicable to breeding all plant species.
1.2 The goals of plant breeding
The
