Conventional breeding techniques for plants

There is the greater impact of biotechnological methods on the improvement of plants. The biotechnology allows the industry of plant breeding to produce new variety quickly and cost effectively. The novel plants should add to the improvement of genetics of plants. The opponents of biotechnology are doubtful regarding the use of biotechnology in the improvement of plants and they say that genetic improvement in plants originate from conventional breeding strategies.

There are computer programs from where we can evaluate the genetic gain accurately rather than estimating it theoretically and they can also evaluate that how much effective is the new biotechnological method but less effort and less cost has been invested to make these tools into work. The cost always plays a major role in order to use any technique or to shape a breeding plan.

When we compare the costs of biotechnological tools and conventional plans we can estimate that biotechnological plans are much better and cost effective as compared to conventional breeding plans. In this article we will compare the cost that is utilized in a new biotechnological method and a conventional breeding plans. This was performed in Mexico in which they focused on the quality of protein maize and that trait was controlled by a recessive gene that was transferred from one line to another line.

This experiment has three objectives in consideration:

1.      They obtained complete information regarding the cost in order to carry out conventional breeding method and to compare it with the facilities available in Mexico.

2.      To find out that how much MAS procedure is cost effective.

3.      In order to provide complete information regarding the effectiveness of MAS procedure whose pros and cons are still unknown.

In a breeding project cost used always depends on the place at which experiment will be performed, objectives of the project and the result of single experiment are not sufficient to consider the effectivity of MAS method. Our results provide the evidence that the breeding plans for plants need to designed effectively.

In farmers field 89% yield can be obtained by applying these procedures. Other studies estimated that 33 to 79% yield is obtained in the hybrids of US. By using conventional breeding methods we can obtain better results but it should be considered that genetic gain is sustainable or not by using these methods. It has also been observed that improvements have been emerged in maize crop.

It is a question mark that these methods can be maintained in future or not. These methods can damage the grain market. Those countries that have high human population and require more amount of maize they will certainly suffer. In order to ensure the higher production of maize in future it is necessary that we should develop new methods.

Conventional breeding of maize:

In the past the farmers improve their crop by saving the seeds of highly productive plants and then utilizing them in future. This method was unpredictable that it was not confirmed that high yielding plants will be obtained or not. Later on the conventional methods for breeding evolved and they include three steps like generating a plant that contains our desirable traits, selection of those individuals that are superior and last one is to cross breed them.

These conventional breeding methods had improved maize crop. The estimation of how much these breeding plans are contributing depends on the yield obtained from breeds and how much they can tolerate different diseases. in US it was estimated from 1930 to 1980 the increase in genetic gain was 92kg.

QPM breeding:

In 1963 it was found that the mutation in the gene opaque 2 has resulted in the maize that contains lysine and tryptophan in greater amount. Maize is used as animal feed and as human food and it cannot provides sufficient amount of amino acids lysine and tryptophan and these amino acids are essential amino acids as they cannot be synthesized by human body.

Later on the breeders used this method of causing mutation in the opaque 2 gene but this resulted in many draw backs like they became more susceptible to many pests and endosperm was soft and their yield was dropped. With the passage of time new genes were discovered that contain desirable traits and this was later on known as QPM.  A new method CIMMYT was discovered in 1960s. In this method we perform back crossing. In it the parent containing our desirable trait is bred with a plant that lacks our desirable trait. The obtained progeny will contain our desirable trait. This process is repeated several times in order to incorporate our desirable trait in the progeny.