Techniques and tools of modern plant breeding: Field crops

Field crops of maize, wheat, rice, sorghum, barley, sugarcane, soybean, etc. are primary source of food and feed. Field crops are also a rich source of cellulosic biomass and carbohydrates for ethanol production. One of the major challenges facing agriculture today is improving the productivity of field crops in an environmentally sustainable manner. Annual climate variation causes temperature extremes, floods, and droughts which all exacerbate the vulnerability of field crops to pests and diseases. Conventional plant breeding has evolved into a molecular breeding and these modern breeding methods have enhanced the pace of crop improvement work. Plant breeders now use molecular and genetic techniques to selectively identify phenotypes and genotypes that are associated with traits of interest. Such functional genomics studies help plant breeders efficiently utilize the germplasm. Cutting edge molecular tools are now available in economically important crops as well as model plant systems. Gene expression techniques have been combined with forward and reverse genetic methods to isolate and introgress desirable alleles into breeding populations that are used to develop elite hybrid crops. This chapter focuses on modern techniques and resources that field crop scientists use to generate genetic information and efficient breeding strategies.