ized research and development journals, and provide relevant information proactively by the societies, such as Potato Research by the European Association for Potato Research (EAPR, www.eapr.net) under EUCARPIA and the American Journal of Potato Research by the Potato Association of America (PAA, http://potatoassociation.org), however, a wide range of plant science audiences would be interested...

In breeding for disease resistance, the magnitude of the genetic response is difficult to appreciate because of environmental stresses that interact with the plant genotype. We discuss herein the fundamental problems in breeding for disease resistance with the aim being to better understand the interactions between plant, pathogen, and spatial patterns. The goal of this study is to fine tune br...

One sustainable agricultural approach to reducing micronutrient malnutrition among people at highest risk (i.e., resource-poor women, infants and children) globally is to enrich major staple food crops (e.g., rice, wheat, maize, beans and cassava) with micronutrients through plant-breeding strategies. These target groups are dependent on these staples for their sustenance. Available research ha...

Oilseed rape (OSR; Brassica napus L.) is a major crop in temperate regions and provides an important source of nutrition to many of the yield-enhancing insect flower visitors that consume floral nectar. The manipulation of mechanisms that control various crop plant traits for the benefit of pollinators has been suggested in the bid to increase food security, but little is known about inherent f...

Molecular plant breeding with the aid of molecular markers has played an important role in modern plant breeding over the last two decades. Many marker-based predictions for quantitative traits have been made to enhance parental selection, but the trait prediction accuracy remains generally low, even with the aid of dense, genome-wide SNP markers. To search for more accurate trait-specific pred...

The development of ‘scientific’ breeding methodologies in the first half of the 20 Century was based partly on the application of genetic theory following the rediscovery of Mendel’s Laws, but mostly on developing procedures for systematic phenotypic selection. Although, new technologies in tissue culture, pathology, statistics and quantitative genetics contributed to advances in the second hal...

There have been many claims that plant breeding would be radically altered by genetic engineering and genetic erosion. There is little doubt that both will affect breeding procedures in the long term; their short term effects are probably minor. A more relevant and immediate concern is the lack of newly-trained Ph.D.s with hands-on experience in plant breeding. Neither public nor private instit...

Plant breeders and nematologists have developed improved cultivars of important crop species with resistance to plant-parasitic nematodes. The effectiveness of these breeding efforts has depended on the availability of efficient screening procedures, identification of adequate sources of durable resistance, nature of the nematode feeding habit, and knowledge of the inheritance of resistance. Th...

The increased usage of whole-genome selection (WGS) and other molecular evaluation methods in plant breeding relies on the ability to genotype a very large number of untested individuals in each breeding cycle. Many plant breeding programs evaluate large biparental populations of homozygous individuals derived from homozygous parent inbred lines. This structure lends itself to parent-progeny im...

Forage plant breeding has been largely based on phenotypic selection following sexual recombination of natural genetic variation found between and within ecotypes. Advances in plant genetic manipulation over the last 15 years have provided convincing evidence that these powerful technologies can complement and enhance plant breeding programs. Significant progress in the establishment of the met...