Modern Plant Breeding Techniques

Beyond the conventional methods, a set of modern tools now supports and accelerates crop improvement: genetic engineering, plant tissue culture, protoplast fusion (somatic hybridisation), molecular marking and DNA fingerprinting. These techniques and their applications are dealt with in more depth in the unit on biotechnology; here they are considered specifically as tools for plant breeding. Modern breeding is applied not only to raise yield but also to improve the nutritional value of crops directly — a strategy known as biofortification — and it is supported by a fast-growing family of precision methods collectively described as New Breeding Techniques (NBT), w …