From the day men started farming, they have been looking for ways to improve the crops, the yield and ways to enhance plant protection. The centuries of efforts drastically altered the methods of farming. With the technological advancements, the efforts to improve farming turned more sophisticated and versatile.
Plant Breeding
Plant breeding is as old a practice as farming, plant breeders have always tried to improve the quality of the product by various methods. The methods of plant breeding have grown considerably more advanced and efficient to get the desired outcome of better taste and look along with long shelf life and disease resistance.
Traditional Plant Breeding
This constitutes the following
• Simply saving the best seeds for next plantation
• Cross pollination – It is a transfer of pollens between two compatible plants. It’s a long process of many failures to get a successful resultant plant trait.
• Hybridization- producing a plant with stable trait through interbreeding and then cross breeding of two such compatible plants to get an F1 hybrid. The offspring’s of these hybrids don’t have similar traits, so they can’t be used for plantation.
• Natural and induced mutation- the mutation when induced using irradiation and chemical is induced mutation whereas when it occurs naturally it’s called natural mutation.
Genetic Engineering
With the advent in technology and introduction of genetic, the plant breeding changed considerably. It started in 1980’s with the creation of first Genetically Modified Organisms(GMOs). It’s the only way available to a plant specialist to produce a superior trait between two different plant species. Introducing a new gene in the plant can
involve using
• The same plant
• A different plant
• A different organism like a microorganism
The primary differences between traditional plant breeding and genetic engineering are
• In the case of traditional breeding, the plants that are being bred needs to be compatible.
• The gene structure in traditional breeding remains unaltered.
• Genetic engineering can use any plant or organism as a source of a new gene.
The plant breeding industry has evolved at a fast pace, in and about Norfolk. Plant nurseries Norfolk is becoming a major hub of plant breeding and training other breeders.
Gooderham Horticulture 