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Plant breeding is the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics.

The goals of plant breeding are to produce crop varieties that boast unique and superior traits for a variety of applications. Plant breeding can be performed using many different techniques, ranging from the selection of the most desirable plants for propagation, to methods that make use of knowledge of genetics and chromosomes, to more complex molecular techniques. Plant breeders strive to create a specific outcome of plants and potentially new plant varieties, and in the course of doing so, narrow down the genetic diversity of that variety to a specific few biotypes. It is practiced worldwide by individuals such as gardeners and farmers, and by professional plant breeders employed by organizations such as government institutions, universities, crop-specific industry associations or research centers. International development agencies believe that breeding new crops is important for ensuring food security by developing new varieties that are higher yielding, disease resistant, drought tolerant or regionally adapted to different environments and growing conditions. A 2023 study shows that without plant breeding, Europe would have produced 20% fewer arable crops over the last 20 years, consuming an additional 21.6 million hectares (53 million acres) of land and emitting 4 billion tonnes (3.9×109 long tons; 4.4×109 short tons) of carbon. Wheat species created for Morocco are currently being crossed with plants to create new varieties for northern France.

Plant breeding started with sedentary agriculture and particularly the domestication of the first agricultural plants, a practice which is estimated to date back 9,000 to 11,000 years. Genetics stimulated research to improve crop production through plant breeding.

One major technique of plant breeding is selection, the process of selectively propagating plants with desirable characteristics and eliminating or "culling" those with less desirable characteristics.

When distantly related species are crossed, plant breeders make use of a number of plant tissue culture techniques to produce progeny from otherwise fruitless mating.

Modern plant breeding may use techniques of molecular biology to select, or in the case of genetic modification, to insert, desirable traits into plants.

Sometimes many different genes can influence a desirable trait in plant breeding.

Plant tissue culturing can produce haploid or double haploid plant lines and generations.

Sometimes genetic modification can produce a plant with the desired trait or traits faster than classical breeding because the majority of the plant's genome is not altered. Genetic modification of plants that can produce pharmaceuticals (and industrial chemicals), sometimes called pharming, is a rather radical new area of plant breeding. Such concerns are not new to plant breeding.

This review also found participatory plant breeding to have a better cost/benefit ratio than non-participatory approaches, and suggested incorporating participatory plant breeding with evolutionary plant breeding.

Evolutionary plant breeding describes practices which use mass populations with diverse genotypes grown under competitive natural selection. The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) evolutionary plant breeding is combined with participatory plant breeding in order to allow farmers to choose which varieties suit their needs in their local environment. Suneson to codify this approach coined the term evolutionary plant breeding and concluded that 15 generations of natural selection are desirable to produce results that are competitive with conventional breeding. Evolutionary breeding allows working with much larger plant population sizes than conventional breeding.

Stage 4: The seed can be used for continued evolutionary plant breeding or as a starting point for a conventional breeding effort.

New varieties of plants can in some cases be developed through plant breeding that generate an increase of yield without relying on an increase in land area.

"A Comparison between Crop Domestication, Classical Plant Breeding, and Genetic Engineering".

Glossary of plant breeding terminology by the Open Plant Breeding Foundation

Quick Facts

• This review also found participatory plant breeding to have a better cost/benefit ratio than non-participatory approaches, and suggested incorporating participatory plant breeding with evolutionary plant breeding.
• Glossary of plant breeding terminology by the Open Plant Breeding Foundation
• Plant breeding can be performed using many different techniques, ranging from the selection of the most desirable plants for propagation, to methods that make use of knowledge of genetics and chromosomes, to more complex molecular techniques.
• Plant breeders strive to create a specific outcome of plants and potentially new plant varieties, and in the course of doing so, narrow down the genetic diversity of that variety to a specific few biotypes.
• Genetics stimulated research to improve crop production through plant breeding.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Plant breeding". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.