Briefly describe the various steps involved in plant breeding.

Explanation

Plant breeding is a technique of manipulation of plant species in order to create desired plant types that are better suited for cultivation, give better yield and are disease resistant.
Steps in plant breeding programmes :
1. Collection of genetic variability (Germplasm Collection). Variability in genes is available in wild relatives of crop so wild varieties and species are collected and preserved so that natural genes of the population can be effectively exploited. Collection of all diverse alleles for all genes of a given crop is called germplasm collection.
2. Evaluation and selection of parents. After evaluating germplasm, parent plant (pure or heterozygous) are selected and multiplied for future use in hybridization.
3. Cross hybridisation among selected parents. Hybrids are produced by genetically combining the desired characters of two parents in one plant. e.g., High protein quality of one parent can be combined with disease resistance from another parent. It is tedious, time consuming process with low success rate.
4. Selection and testing of superior recombinants. Among the hybrids, scientific evaluation and selection is done for the desired character combination. Such obtained superior plants are self pollinated to reach a state of homozygosity.
5. Testing, release and commercialisation of new cultivars. New selected lines are tested for desirable traits by growing in research field under ideal conditions. This is done for at least 3 growing seasons at different country locations and then compared with local crop.