Plant biologists in fields of ecology, evolution, genetics and breeding frequently use multivariate methods. This paper illustrates Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Gabriel's biplot as applied to microarray expression data from plant pathology experiments.

As one of the three most important cereal species, maize is grown in a range of environments, and is a basic food grain in many areas and several cultures. This paper examines water use efficiency (WUE) in maize through a review of literatures on the topic. It then examines strategies to improve WUE, through plant breeding, biotechnology and changes to agronomic practice. In breeding for improv...

As a term, “next generation plant breeding” is increasingly becoming popular in crop breeding programmes, conferences, scientific fora and social media (Schnable, 2013). Being a frontier area of crop science and business, it is gaining considerable interest among scientific community and policymakers and funds flow from entrepreneurs and research funding agencies. Plant breeding is a continuous...

Opiumpoppy (Papaver somniferum L.) is one of the important and oldest cultivated medicinal plant used to extract morphine, papaverine, thebaine, codeine and other alkaloids. This study aimed to determine general and specific combining abilities of F1 hybrids obtained from various crosses and their parental lines for developing appropriate breeding material for future breeding programs. The resu...