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Gene Pool Diversity and Crop Improvement ,Volume 1 provides comprehensive and latest insights on the evolutionary genesis of diversity, access and its utilization in the evolution of major crop species. The book focuses on the exploration and characterization of wild genetic resources that are reservoires of desired genetic variability in the assimilation of important crop species for the efficient utilization of these gene pools for sustainable genetic improvements to assure food security. A comprehensive account of various crops, origin, exploitation of the primary, secondary and tertiary gene pools through breeding, biosystematical, cytogenetical and molecular phylogenetical relationships, and genetic enhancement through biotechnological interventions among others have been provided as the necessary underpinnings to consolidate information on the effective and sustainable utilization of the related genetic resources. The contributions also unravel the understanding of the myriad complexities of genic and genomic interactions among species, more particularly of wild relatives of crop species and/or phylogenetically distant germplasm, to provide the necessary inputs to increase the effectiveness of genetic improvement through traditional and/or genetic engineering methods. The book is especially intended for students and scientists working on the genetic improvement of crop species. Plant breeders, geneticists, taxonomists, molecular biologists and plant biotechnologists working on crop species are going to find this book very useful

The article presented the results of 20 years of the Belarusian apple breeding programmne. Apple breeding has old traditions at the Institute for Fruit Growing in Belarus. Special attention is paid to new adaptive dessert apple cultivars. As a result of the second stage of the durable resistant apple breeding programme, conducted in 1994-2010, six Belarusian apple cultivars were submitted to State Testing of the Republic of Belarus. The cultivars were selected from the apple hybrid fund obtained in 1994-2000. In total, 252 progenies with more than 22 300 seedlings were assessed for their susceptibility to scab after artificial inoculation in the nursery, and almost 5000 seedlings were further evaluated for spontaneous infections after natural inoculation in orchards, where they had grown without any chemical spraying against the disease. After evaluation of three cropping seasons, 120 selections were propagated on rootstocks B.62-396 and PB 4. The best selections with combined resistance to fungal diseases and winter frost, high crop yield and attractive fruits were the new cultivars 'Belana', 'Diyament', 'Krasavita', 'Navavita', 'Sakavita' and 'Zorka'.

This paper describes a participatory plant-breeding (PPB) program for maize in a rural development project financed by the United Kingdom's Department of International Development (DFID) and the Government of India and executed by the Krishak Bharati Cooperative (KRIBHCO). The program was targeted at low-resource farmers of the Panchmahals district of Gujarat. Farmers were given a range of maize varieties to try in a participatory varietal-selection program. However, none of these proved to be overwhelmingly popular with farmers, although maize variety Shweta from Uttar Pradesh was adopted by some farmers for more fertile fields. Hence, in 1993 a breeding program was begun by crossing yellow- and white-endospermed maize varieties, all of which had some acceptance or positive attributes identified in participatory trials. The breeding program targeted trails identified by farmers, and in some generations, selections were carried out by farmers in the populations grown on land rented by the project. Soil-fertility management was lower than that normally used on research-station land. The breeding program has produced several successful varieties. One of them, GDRM 187, has qualified for release and yielded 18% more than the local check in research station trials, while being seven days earlier to silk. In farmers' fields, where average yields were lower, the yield advantage was 28%. Farmers perceived GDRM 187 to have better grain quality than local landraces.

Climate change impacts imply that the stabilization and improvement of agricultural production systems using technological innovations has become vital. Improvements in plant breeding are integral to such innovations. In the context of German crop breeding programs, the economic impact of exchanging genetic material has yet to be determined. To this end, we analyze in this impact assessment the economic effects on German winter wheat production that are attributable to exchanging parental material amongst breeders in the breeding process. This exchange is supported by the breeders' exemption, which is an integral part of the German plant variety protection legislation. It ensures that breeders can freely use licensed varieties created by other breeders for their own breeding activities and aims to speed up the development of improved varieties. For our analysis, we created a unique data set that combines variety-specific grain yield, adoption, and pedigree information of 133 winter wheat varieties. We determined the parental pedigree of each variety to see if a variety was created by interbreeding varieties that are internal or external to its specific breeder. Our study is the first that analyzes the economic impact of exchanging genetic material in German breeding programs. We found that more than 90 % of the tested varieties were bred with exchanged parental material, whereby the majority had two external parents. Also, these varieties were planted on an 8.5 times larger area than the varieties that were bred with two internal parents. Due to lower adoption, these only contributed 11 % to the overall winter wheat production in Germany, even though they yielded more. We used an economic surplus model to measure the benefits of exchanging parental breeding material on German winter wheat production. This resulted in an overall estimated economic surplus of 19.2 to 22.0 billion EUR from production year 1972 to 2018. This implies tremendous returns to using the breeder's exemption, which, from an economic perspective, is almost cost-free for the breeder. We conclude that the exchange of breeding material contributes to improving Germany's agricultural production and fosters the development of climate-resilient production systems and global food security.

Open Access Journal; Published online: 06 Nov 2019 ; Maize production in West and Central Africa (WCA) is constrained by a wide range of interacting stresses that keep productivity below potential yields. Among the many problems afflicting maize production in WCA, drought, foliar diseases, and parasitic weeds are the most critical. Several decades of efforts devoted to the genetic improvement of maize have resulted in remarkable genetic gain, leading to increased yields of maize on farmers' fields. The revolution unfolding in the areas of genomics, bioinformatics, and phenomics is generating innovative tools, resources, and technologies for transforming crop breeding programs. It is envisaged that such tools will be integrated within maize breeding programs, thereby advancing these programs and addressing current and future challenges. Accordingly, the maize improvement program within International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is undergoing a process of modernization through the introduction of innovative tools and new schemes that are expected to enhance genetic gains and impact on smallholder farmers in the region. Genomic tools enable genetic dissections of complex traits and promote an understanding of the physiological basis of key agronomic and nutritional quality traits. Marker-aided selection and genome-wide selection schemes are being implemented to accelerate genetic gain relating to yield, resilience, and nutritional quality. Therefore, strategies that effectively combine genotypic information with data from field phenotyping and laboratory-based analysis are currently being optimized. Molecular breeding, guided by methodically defined product profiles tailored to different agroecological zones and conditions of climate change, supported by state-of-the-art decision-making tools, is pivotal for the advancement of modern, genomics-aided maize improvement programs. Accelerated genetic gain, in turn, catalyzes a faster variety replacement rate. It is critical to forge and strengthen partnerships for enhancing the impacts of breeding products on farmers' livelihood. IITA has well-established channels for delivering its research products/technologies to partner organizations for further testing, multiplication, and dissemination across various countries within the subregion. Capacity building of national agricultural research system (NARS) will facilitate the smooth transfer of technologies and best practices from IITA and its partners. ; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ; Government of Australia ; Government of Belgium ; Government of Canada ; Government of China ; Government of France ; Government of India ; Government of Japan ; Government of Korea ; Government of Mexico ; Government of the Netherlands ; Government of New Zealand ; Government of Norway ; Government of Sweden ; Government of Switzerland ; Government of the United Kingdom ; Government of the United States of America ; World Bank ; Peer Review

Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc.) has a large number of landraces throughout Africa where small-scale farmers have preserved its genetic diversity on-farm. To date, the full genetic diversity of the crop remains largely unexploited. Until recently bambara groundnut never received any appreciable research effort, especially for its genetic improvement. Until then, only selection breeding was practised in which existing landraces were evaluated and their seeds multiplied. However, no new combinations resulting from hybridisation had ever been produced. Recently, collaborative research efforts involving partners from Africa and Europe have produced the first crosses of bambara groundnut. The creation of these crosses is a significant scientific and practical achievement and opens up the possibility of breeding true varieties of this crop. This paper shows how different strategies have been combined to establish the basis of a strategic breeding programme in bambara groundnut. The paper also illustrates the use of landraces in the bambara groundnut breeding programme, as an example of the contribution that landraces can make to increasing productivity in marginal environments and the conservation of a crop's genetic resources on-farm. ; European Union ; Peer Review

Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc.) has a large number of landraces throughout Africa where small-scale farmers have preserved its genetic diversity on-farm. To date, the full genetic diversity of the crop remains largely unexploited. Until recently bambara groundnut never received any appreciable research effort, especially for its genetic improvement. Until then, only selection breeding was practised in which existing landraces were evaluated and their seeds multiplied. However, no new combinations resulting from hybridisation had ever been produced. Recently, collaborative research efforts involving partners from Africa and Europe have produced the first crosses of bambara groundnut. The creation of these crosses is a significant scientific and practical achievement and opens up the possibility of breeding true varieties of this crop. This paper shows how different strategies have been combined to establish the basis of a strategic breeding programme in bambara groundnut. The paper also illustrates the use of landraces in the bambara groundnut breeding programme, as an example of the contribution that landraces can make to increasing productivity in marginal environments and the conservation of a crop's genetic resources on-farm. ; European Union ; Peer Review

Rispail, N. et al. ; Faba bean is an excellent candidate crop to provide nitrogen input into temperate agricultural systems. However, its growth is hampered by several factors including environmental stresses and the presence of anti-nutritional factors. To solve these limitations, breeding programs have been initiated that were successful for monogenic traits but not so for multigenic traits. The large genome size of faba bean has slowed down breeding processes. Several other legumes have emerged as model legumes including Medicago truncatula, Lotus japonicus, Glycine max and Pisum sativum. The establishment of these models has already boosted our understanding of important processes such as the nitrogen-fixing symbiotic interaction. The high level of synteny and collinearity existing between legumes makes possible the transfer of key knowledge from model legumes to faba bean. Here we review the most recent knowledge gained from model legumes on grain quality, resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, nitrogen-fixing symbiosis and how this knowledge can be employed for faba bean breeding. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. ; This work was funded in part by the European Union Grain Legumes Integrated Project (FOOD-CT-2004-506223), the Spanish Ministry of Education (AGL2005-0274/AGR, AGL2008-01239/AGR), the Australian Research Council for Centre of Excellence funding, UQ for strategic funds from the VC, DVCR and BACS Faculty. ; Peer Reviewed

New Breeding Techniques (NBTs) include several new technologies for introduction of new variation into crop plants for plant breeding, in particular the methods that aim to make targeted mutagenesis at specific sites in the plant genome (NBT mutagenesis). However, following that the French highest legislative body for administrative justice, the Conseil d'État, has sought advice from The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in interpreting the scope of the genetically modified organisms (GMO) Directive, CJEU in a decision from 2018, stated that organisms modified by these new techniques are not exempted from the current EU GMO legislation. The decision was based in a context of conventional plant breeding using mutagenesis of crop plants by physical or chemical treatments. These plants are explicitly exempted from the EU GMO legislation, based on the long-termed use of mutagenesis. Following its decision, the EU Court considers that the NBTs operate "at a rate out of all proportion to those resulting from the application of conventional methods of mutagenesis." In this paper, we argue that in fact this is not the case anymore; instead, a convergence has taken place between conventional mutagenesis and NBTs, in particular due to the possibilities of TILLING methods that allow the fast detection of mutations in any gene of a genome. Thus, by both strategies mutations in any gene across the genome can be obtained at a rather high speed. However, the differences between the strategies are 1) the precision of the exact site of mutation in a target gene, and 2) the number of off-target mutations affecting other genes than the target gene. Both aspects favour the NBT methods, which provide more precision and fewer off-target mutations. This is in stark contrast to the different status of the two technologies with respect to EU GMO legislation. In the future, this situation is not sustainable for the European plant breeding industry, since it is expected that restrictions on the use of NBTs will be weaker outside Europe. This calls for reconsiderations of the EU legislation of plants generated via NBT mutagenesis.

The pea crop (Pisum sativum L.) is a convenient source of plant protein for animal feeding. The objective of this research was to evaluate field pea breeding lines for agronomic performance and seed quality focussed to their use in a sustainable production. Thirty-five field pea breeding lines and six elite cultivars were evaluated for their agronomic value in field in Spain upon 20 traits related to flower, cycle, plant architecture, productivity and seed quality. The lines showed significant differences in all the quantitative traits evaluated and three of them, namely MB-0307, MB-0308, and MB-0319 were chosen to be evaluated, together with the advanced cultivar ZP-1233, in field and in growing chamber for agronomic performance, seed quality and ability for sustainable production. The four accessions displayed high seed protein content that had significant effect of cropping density with averages of 253.6 g kg−1 under low cropping density of 60 plants m−2 and 259.1 g kg−1 under high cropping density of 90 plants m−2, therefore, the low cropping density should be regarded as the most convenient. Average yield of the lines MB-0307, MB-0308 and MB-0319 and the cultivar ZP-1233 was fair (197.5 g m−2), probably due to the absence of fertilizers and irrigation, aiming for the sustainability of the crop. Intercropping with rye and herbicide application resulted in no differences on the seed yield; therefore, the ability of the breeding lines to grow without herbicide seems to be demonstrated, while the germination of the seeds at low temperature was very good. These results indicate that field pea could be a new protein crop in the North of Spain to satisfy the demand of plant protein for animal feed, based upon adapted breeding lines that combine the ability for growing under sustainable conditions with other desirable agronomic traits maintaining an adequate productivity ; Research was supported by the INLUDES (Lugo, Spain) and the projects RF95-011-C3-3 from the Spanish Government, and XUGA40302B94 and PGIDIT03RAG19E from the Galician Government. The authors are grateful to Xuncoga SCG and Diputación de Pontevedra (Pontevedra, Spain) for farm facilities, to UNIP (Paris, France) for providing statistics about pea production, to C. Caminero for supplying pea seeds, and to X. Iglesias, M. Güimil, S. Rodríguez, J. Iglesias and M. Rey for technical assistance. ; INLUDES ; MAPA ; Xunta de Galicia ; Peer reviewed

Constant increase in human population causes an increased demand for wheat, which production should rise at a rate of 1.6% annually until 2050. To achieve this goal, scientists and plant breeders must have access to all possible breeding tools. The most recent is precision breeding with CRISPR/Cas9 system, which allows creation of desired crop varieties in a fast, simple and much mote direct way compared to previous breeding techniques. Many agriculturally important traits of wheat have been targeted by genome editing, resulting in resistance to powdery mildew and Fusarium graminearum, i~aproved drought tolerance, water use efficiency and herbicide tolerance, enhanced gtain size and yield, as well as reduced amount of alfa-gliadins and immunoreactivity for consumers with coeliac disease. Also, mutant wheat plants which abort pollen development were produced using this technology, resulting in male sterility. Production of male-sterile and doubled haploid plants can facilitate development of hybrid seed production in wheat. However, all these promising results obtained by advanced methods will have only scientific significance if their wide application in wheat breeding is not allowed. In the European Union plants obtained by precision breeding techniques like CRISPR are considered as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) which are not exempt from the GMO legislation. Even crops with the smallest CRISPR-mediated alteration, which can also arise spontaneously in nature, are subjected to these provisions. Some part of the scientific community thinks that there are no scientific reasons to consider genome-edited crops differently than conventionally bred varieties. They stated that plants obtained by simple and targeted genome editing and which do not contain foreign genes are at least as safe as varieties derived from conventional breeding techniques. Recently, many European research institutions have taken the initiative to change the EU legislation by signing an open statement which says that gene editing with CRISPR should be used as a faster and mote efficient way of producing food sustainably. If this initiative is accepted, it will allow new methods to be applied more widely in breeding and their results can be translated to the field through the precise introgression of desired traits into conventional wheat varieties.

In the past, breeding for incorporation of insect pest resistance or tolerance into cultivars for use in integrated pest management schemes in oilseed rape/canola (Brassica napus) production has hardly ever been approached. This has been largely due to the broad availability of insecticides and the complexity of dealing with high-throughput phenotyping of insect performance and plant damage parameters. However, recent changes in the political framework in many countries demand future sustainable crop protection which makes breeding approaches for crop protection as a measure for pest insect control attractive again. At the same time, new camera-based tracking technologies, new knowledge-based genomic technologies and new scientific insights into the ecology of insect–Brassica interactions are becoming available. Here we discuss and prioritise promising breeding strategies and direct and indirect breeding targets, and their time-perspective for future realisation in integrated insect pest protection of oilseed rape. In conclusion, researchers and oilseed rape breeders can nowadays benefit from an array of new technologies which in combination will accelerate the development of improved oilseed rape cultivars with multiple insect pest resistances/tolerances in the near future.

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is a major food and cash crop in Burkina Faso. Due to the growing demand for raw oilseeds, there is an increasing interest in groundnut production from traditional rain-fed areas to irrigated environments. However, despite implementation of many initiatives in the past to increase groundnut productivity and production, the groundnut industry still struggles to prosper due to the fact of several constraints including minimal development research and fluctuating markets. Yield penalty due to the presence of drought and biotic stresses continue to be a major drawback for groundnut production. This review traces progress in the groundnut breeding that started in Burkina Faso before the country&rsquo ; s political independence in 1960 through to present times. Up to the 1980s, groundnut improvement was led by international research institutions such as IRHO (Institute of Oils and Oleaginous Research) and ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics). However, international breeding initiatives were not sufficient to establish a robust domestic groundnut breeding programme. This review also provides essential information about opportunities and challenges for groundnut research in Burkina Faso, emphasising the need for institutional attention to genetic improvement of the crop.

Contribution of Jānis Lielmanis in plant breeding in Latvia
In autumn 1922, the Ministry of Agriculture of Latvia delegated agronomist Jānis Hilarijs Lielmanis (1895-1970) to organise and establish the State Stende Breeding Station. For many years, he was a director (1922-1940) and later a researcher (1945-1956) of the State Stende Breeding Station. Under the guidance of Lielmanis, an infrastructure for breeding work was formed and research into the morphological, biological, and economic traits of local plant varieties obtained from different Latvian regions were begun in the station. Already in 1924, breeders started breeding of cereals, peas, flax, potato, and clover, using selection from local and foreign varieties and also hybridisation. Until 1945, breeders in Stende, under the guidance of Jānis Lielmanis, developed 16 plant varieties, in the period from 1945 to 1960 — 19 varieties. Parallel to his work in Stende, Lielmanis delivered lectures on plant breeding at the University of Latvia (1933-1940) and lectures on genetics, breeding, and seed production at the Latvian University of Agriculture (1940-1944, then Jelgava Academy of Agriculture; 1945-1948). In the later part of his life, Lielmanis worked in the Latvian Scientific Research Institute of Agriculture (1957-1970), where he conducted research in crop farming and breeding of red clover using traditional breeding methods, as well as polyploidy and heterosis methods, which was modern for that time. The research results of oat growth and acclimatisation were summarised by Lielmanis in his habilitation paper (1933), and the results of breeding and growth of red clover — in his dissertation thesis. He was awarded a degree of candidate of agricultural sciences in 1957 and a doctoral degree in 1968. He was very principled in his scientific viewpoints; he supervised five doctoral theses written by candidates of agricultural sciences, published 457 scientific and popular-scientific articles, and wrote six books. Taking into consideration the contribution of Lielmanis to Latvian agricultural science, in 1995, the Jānis Lielmanis award was established, which has been received by breeders, breeding groups, and seed producers for their contribution in plant breeding and seed production in Latvia.