With advancements in genetics, molecular biology and tissue culture, new traits have been incorporated into crop plants.
Explain the main steps in breeding a new genetic variety of a crop.

Explanation

Various step involved in plant breeding are as follows:
(a) Collcetion of variability : The entire collection of variability of the species with diverse alleles for all genes is prerequisite for breeding programme.
(b) Evaluation and Selection of parents : Plants with desirable combinations of characters are indentified and selected plants are used in hybridisation. Pure lines are created wherever desirable and possible.
(c ) Cross-hybridisation among the selected parents : Parents with desired character are genetically combined with multiple crosses. This is a time taking procees. For example a plant with high protein content is crossed is with a plant with genes for disease resistance. This process is not without its share of difficulties Since, only one in few hundred to a thousand crosses show desirable combination.
(d) Selection and testing of superior recombinants : The plants are selected with desirable characters at every generation
(e) Testing, release and commercialisation of new cultivars : The newly selected lines are evaluted for their yield and other agronomic traits of quality, disease resistance, etc. This evalution is followed by testing the material in farmer's field and its comparison to the best available local crop cultivar. It is then allowed to be released.