Breeding Barley In The New Millenium

These proceedings cover topics as various as breeding for resistance to disease such as stripe rust, Fusarium head blight, and barley yellow dwarf virus; trends and impacts over two decades of barley breeding in Latin America; the impacts of barley breeding in Chile, Ecuador, and Peru; the contributions of yield and crop management to improving barley yields; the development of hull-less barley; and other topics.

Contributed papers presented at the Symposium; festschrift for Benjamin Peary Pal, 1906-1989, Indian agricultural scientist.

This volume offers an up-to-date overview of biotechnologically oriented barley research. It is structured into two major sections: the first focusing on current agricultural challenges and approaches to barley improvement, and the second providing insights into recent advances in methodology. Leading scientists highlight topics such as: the global importance of barley; genetic diversity and genebanks; domestication; shoot and inflorescence architecture; reproductive development; mineral nutrition; photosynthesis and leaf senescence; grain development; drought tolerance; viral and fungal pathogens; phytophagous arthropods; molecular farming; sequence resources; induced genetic variation and TILLING; meiotic recombination; Hordeum bulbosum; genome-wide association scans; genomic selection; haploid technology; genetic engineering; and whole plant phenomics. Providing comprehensive information on topics ranging from fundamental aspects to specific applications, this book offers a useful resource for scientists, plant breeders, teachers and advanced students in the fields of molecular and plant cell biology, plant biotechnology, and agronomy.

This helpful book presents state-of-the-art reviews on plant genetics and the breeding of all types of crops by both traditional means and molecular methods. Understanding and preserving crop genetic resources is vital to the security of food systems worldwide. The emphasis of the series is on methodology, a fundamental understanding of crop genetics, and applications to major crops.

Agriculture depends on improved cultivars, and cultivars are developed through proper plant breeding. Unfortunately, applied plant breeding programs that are focused on cereal commodity crops are under serious erosion because of lack of funding. This loss of public support affects breeding continuity, objectivity, and, perhaps equally important, the training of future plant breeders and the utilization and improvement of plant genetic resources currently available. Breeding programs should focus not only on short-term research goals but also on long-term genetic improvement of germplasm. The research products of breeding programs are important not only for food security but also for commodity-oriented public and private programs, especially in the fringes of crop production. Breeding strategies used for long-term selection are often neglected but the reality is that long-term research is needed for the success of short-term products. An excellent example is that genetically broad-based public germplasm has significantly been utilized and recycled by industry, producing billions of dollars for industry and farmers before intellectual property rights were available. Successful examples of breeding continuity have served the sustainable cereal crop production that we currently have. The fact that farmers rely on public and private breeding institutions for solving long-term challenges should influence policy makers to reverse this trend of reduced funding. Joint cooperation between industry and public institutions would be a good example to follow. The objective of this volume is to increase the utilization of useful genetic resources and increase awareness of the relative value and impact of plant breeding and biotechnology. That should lead to a more sustainable crop production and ultimately food security. Applied plant breeding will continue to be the foundation to which molecular markers are applied. Focusing useful molecular techniques on the right traits will build a strong linkage between genomics and plant breeding and lead to new and better cultivars. Therefore, more than ever there is a need for better communication and cooperation among scientists in the plant breeding and biotechnology areas. We have an opportunity to greatly enhance agricultural production by applying the results of this research to meet the growing demands for food security and environmental conservation. Ensuring strong applied plant breeding programs with successful application of molecular markers will be essential in ensuring such sustainable use of plant genetic resources.