The deliberate improvement of crop plants, from a farmer keeping the best seed heads ten thousand years ago to the gene-level tools of today; the twentieth century's high-yield breeding drove the Green Revolution, whose costs to biodiversity and farmer independence are still debated. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Yield gains from Green Revolution breeding are undisputed, but assessments of its net benefit are debated: critics point to reduced crop biodiversity and deeper dependence on purchased seed and inputs.
Facts
Central QuestionPlant breeding is the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics, used to improve nutritional quality, yield and resistance to diseases and stress. 1 Connections
Associated With
Breeders cross cultivated varieties with wild relatives to reintroduce lost resistance and tolerance traits.
Source Crop Wild Relative (Wikipedia)
Genetic engineering beside crossing as a route to new varieties
Source Genetically Modified Crops (Wikipedia)
Has Figure
Plant geneticist known for research on crop domestication and centers of origin.
Source Luther Burbank (Wikipedia)
Source M. S. Swaminathan (Wikipedia)
Agronomist, botanist and geneticist; his collections and centers of origin serve plant breeding to this day
Source Nikolai Vavilov (Wikipedia)
Source Norman Borlaug (Wikipedia)
Includes
The working principle behind hybrid breeding programs
Source Heterosis (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Plant breeding
WikipediaLead sectionQuote, Lead section
Plant breeding is the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics.
Green Revolution (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationHigh-yielding varieties sectionQuote, High-yielding varieties section
Agronomists bred high-yielding varieties of corn, wheat, and rice. HYVs have higher nitrogen-absorbing potential than other varieties.
Crop Wild Relative (Wikipedia)
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Description
The Green Revolution has been criticized for an agricultural model which relied on a few staple and market profitable crops, and pursuing a model which limited the biodiversity of Mexico.
A dissenting reading, from Historians of the Green Revolution's environmental impactGreen Revolution (Wikipedia), Wikimedia Foundation
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