Plant Breeding
The principles and methods by which the genetic constitution of plants is changed are together called plant breeding.
Fruit Breeding
Fruit breeding refers to the purposeful genetic improvement of
fruit crops through various techniques including selection, hybridization, mutation, induction and molecular techniques (Jainick, 2012).Fruit breeding is an ancient technology which originated with domestication of fruits in prehistory and antiquity when useful species were identified, chosen, cultivated and improved by continuous selection. To some people fruit breeding means a combination of science and art of making a cross between two fruit cultivars in the hope to get new and superior cultivars that have unique desirable characteristics.
Prerequisite of Fruit Breeding
Fruit breeding is a process to choose the best progeny having desirable traits. The variation gives opportunity to choose, therefore variability must be present in the population of fruit species to facilitate the selection of desired progeny. The variation is either naturally present due to natural hybridization or spontaneous mutation or fruit breeders create it by hybridization, induced mutation and genetic engineering. Once the variation in fruit population is available, Fruit breeders can go ahead for selection, evaluation, multiplication and distribution of fruit variety for growing.
Methods of Fruit Breeding
Domestication
Introduction
Hybridization
Polyploidy
Mutation
Genetic Engineering
