You may be wondering, “What is Plant Breeding?”
Someone once said, “Plant breeding is a world in which every seed is a story waiting to be told.” The most common definition of plant breeding is consistent with “plant breeding is the art and science of improving crops for several purposes.”
But, why an art and a science?
For thousands of years, humans have been breeding plants. The hunter-gatherers tried different plants, kept seeds of their preferred plants, and spread them as they journeyed through life. The advent of permanent settlements bore agriculture and paved the way for plant breeding. Humans actively select and regrow offsprings of their preferred plants time and time again. We all have, in one way or the other, repeatedly bought a type of orange at the market because it was sweeter, had more juice, was more orangey than the others or, simply, based on our mood; our instincts. We have, maybe, even gone as far as trying our hands at growing that tree in our backyard. Gregor Mendel’s garden pea experiment provided the first principle and a framework for systematic plant breeding—genetics.
Our genes determine our outward expression and are transferred from parents to their children.
Genes are the reason why an orange tree bears oranges and its seed, the same. However, the same kind of orange planted in different environments experiences gross differences in the expression of its genes. A plant kept by a windowsill and another kept in the dark can’t grow the same, right? In the same way, if you forgot to tender to that orange tree in your backyard, you know how it ended.
The changing climate necessitates plants that are resistant to stress, can optimally produce to meet our needs, maintain biodiversity, and support the planet sustainably. The human population is estimated to reach 9 billion people by 2050 and we may not have enough food to feed the world. Curbing land grab for agricultural purposes, implementing eco-friendly methods to contain pests and diseases, and boosting plants’ tolerance to abiotic stresses are imminent. These are some of the global challenges that plant breeders tackle.
Today, plant breeding is crucial to several industries – food, pharmaceuticals, textile, energy, cosmetics and what have you. Modern plant breeding boasts of a collection of advanced technology and a long history of science on lab benches, on extensive fields of finely aligned experimental plots, on farmers’ fields, on plant expeditions, in genebanks, behind computers and on suave walks around the globe.
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