The Role of Biotechnology in Plant Breeding

Suresh Haritwal and Yuvraj Kumawat

Abstract

The global food and nutrition crisis is primarily the result of the loss of agricultural productivity caused by global climate change. Moreover, a growing global population drives up food demand, aggravating the issue of food scarcity. Despite initiatives to lessen food shortages, millions of people  still  do  not  receive  the  required  nourishment.  Plant  breeding methods are primarily concerned with genetic advancement of crops by selection,  crossing  of  superior  genotypes  and  their  screening.  The introduction of desired traits through utilizing the available variability by introduction, selection  and  hybridization  methods,  can  lead  to  the development  of  improved  crop  varieties.  The  traditional  techniques produce  advanced  cultivars  with  desirable characteristics,  but  it  takes longer (6 to 12 years) to complete the process. Modern biotechnological technologies, such as plant tissue culture, molecular markers, genetic transformation, hybrid generation, nano-biotechnology, and genome editing tools such as zinc-finger and CRISPR-Cas9, developed in the last two decades, have improved our understanding of the genetics of characteristics and enabled traditional breeding to produce new varieties faster.