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‘Modem methods of breeding animals and plants can alleviate the global food shortage’. Comment on the statement and give suitable examples.

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‘Modem methods of breeding animals and plants can alleviate the global food shortage’. Comment on the statement and give suitable examples.

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The main steps in breeding a new genetic variety of a crop are:

(i) Collection of variability: Genetic variability is the root of any breeding programme. In many crops pre-existing genetic variability is available from wild relatives of the crop. Collection and preservation of all the different wild varieties, species and relatives of the cultivated species (followed by their evaluation for their characteristics) is a pre-requisite for effective exploitation of natural genes available in the populations. The entire collection (of plants /seeds) having all the diverse alleles for all genes in a given crop is called germplasm collection.

(ii) Evaluation and selection of parents: The germplasm is evaluated so as to identify plants with desirable combination of characters. The selected plants are multiplied and used in the process of hybridisation. Pure lines are created wherever desirable and possible.

(iii) Cross hybridisation among the selected parents: The desired characters have very often to be combined from two different plants (parents), for example high protein quality of one parent may need to be combined with disease resistance from another parent. This is possible by cross hybridising the two parents to produce hybrids that genetically combine the desired characters in one plant. This is a very time-consuming and tedious process since the pollen grains from the desirable plant chosen as male parent have to be collected and placed on the stigma of the flowers selected as female parent (In chapter 2 details on how to make crosses have been described). Also, it is not necessary that the hybrids do combine the desirable characters; usually only one in few hundred to a thousand crosses shows the desirable combination.

(iv) Selection and testing of superior, recombinants: This step consists of selecting, among the progeny of the hybrids, those plants that have the desired character combination. The selection process is crucial to the success of the breeding objective and requires careful scientific evaluation of the progeny. This step yields plants that are superior to both of the parents (very often more than one superior progeny plant may become available). These are self-pollinated for several generations till they reach a state of uniformity (homozygosity), so that the characters will not segregate in the progeny.

(v) Testing, release and commercialisation of new cultivars: The newly selected lines are evaluated for their yield and other agronomic traits of quality, disease resistance, etc. This evaluation is done by growing these in the research fields and recording their performance under ideal fertilizer application, irrigation, and other crop management practices. The evaluation in research fields is followed by testing the materials in farmers’ fields:, for at least three growing seasons at several locations in the country, representing all the agro climatic zones where the crop is usually grown. The material is evaluated in comparison to the best available local crop cultivar a check or reference cultivar.

(a) It takes 3-10 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of meat using animal farming. That is why cereals demand increases.

(b) Production of single cell proteins (SCP) by microbes. Microbes are being grown on an Industrial scale. Spirulina can be easily grown on starch, molasses etc., and can make food which is rich in proteins, minerals, fats, carbohydrates and vitamins. This could be a good alternative for dealing with the problem of malnutrition.

The advantages of tissue culture methods are:

By application of these methods it is possible to achieve propagation of a large number of plants in very short durations. This method of producing thousands of plants through tissue culture is called micro-propagation. Each of these plants will be genetically identical to the original plant from which they were grown, i.e., they are somaclones. Many important food plants like tomato, banana, apple, etc., have been produced on commercial scale using this method. Try to visit a tissue culture laboratory with your teacher to better understand and appreciate the process. Another important application of the method is the recovery of healthy plants from diseased plants. Although the plant is infected with a virus, the meristem (apical and axillary) is free of virus. Hence, one can remove the meristem and grow it in vitro to obtain virus-free plants. Scientists have succeeded in culturing meristems of banana, sugarcane, potato, etc.

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