Plant Breeding

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

Agronomists bred high-yielding varieties of corn, wheat, and rice. HYVs have higher nitrogen-absorbing potential than other varieties.

There, she started her career as the leader of the development of maize cytogenetics, the focus of her research for the rest of her life.

They developed plant molecular genetics, in particular molecular mechanisms for cell proliferation and differentiation and response to abiotic stresses (high light, ozone, cold, salt and drought) and constructed transgenic crops (tobacco, rape seed, corn) resistant to insect pest and tolerant to novel herbicides.

Sir Otto Herzberg Frankel (4 November 1900, Vienna, 21 November 1998, Canberra) was an Austrian-born New Zealand and Australian geneticist renowned for his pioneering work in plant genetics and conservation.

Virender Lal Chopra (9 August 1936-18 April 2020) was an Indian biotechnologist, geneticist, agriculturalist and a director-general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), known to have contributed to the development of wheat production in India.

Following this he worked as rice specialist in the World Bank in Nigeria followed by 10 years as plant breeder and INGER global coordinator of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

His research group applied gene technology to contribute to food security in developing countries.

Mary-Dell Chilton (February 2, 1939, June 24, 2026) was an American biochemist, inventor and writer who was one of the founders of modern plant biotechnology.

Lippman has used gene editing technology to investigate the control of fruit production in various crops.

His research focuses on plant reproduction, including using synthetic apomixis to clone hybrid strains of commercial crops like rice and maize.

Golden Indica Rice with enriched Provitamin A and Ferritin rice with high iron content were developed by his group with a vision to meet the challenges of malnutrition in developing countries.

Genetically modified crops (GM crops) are plants used in agriculture, the DNA of which has been modified using genetic engineering methods.

Agricultural biotechnology, also known as agribiotech, is an area of agricultural science involving the use of scientific tools and techniques, including genetic engineering, molecular markers, molecular diagnostics, vaccines, and tissue culture, to modify living organisms: plants, animals, and microorganisms.

Plant genetic resources describes the variability within plants that comes from human and natural selection over millennia.

pure line" experiments in genetics

Calloway bred a special strain of the plant suited to local conditions

having developed 60 superior strains of rice

a strain of cotton named Caravonica Cotton

Geneticist, Plant breeder

known for plant breeding

Throughout all his life, Michurin worked to create new sorts of fruit plants.

He obtained a PhD in Agronomy with a focus on plant genetics and breeding

Stubbe worked on using X-rays to produce useful mutations in barley

He played a key role in developing hybrid varieties of corn and helped improve other crops through his team's research in the Agronomy Department at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, College of Agriculture.

Wheeler produced viable economic wheat and fruit strains for a short prairie growing season with harsh winters.

In the same year, he worked as curator at the Agricultural Museum in Berlin, where he managed plant breeding.

In 1911, after 10 years of experimenting and failures, Tangüis was able to develop a seed which produced a superior cotton plant resistant to the disease.

He performed studies of corn and barley varieties, did analysis of wheat varieties that were most suitable for the pasta industry

His longest service however was as director of the Welsh Plant Breeding Station in Aberystwyth, a post he held from 1919 to 1942.

With D. F. Jones, Mangelsdorf developed and patented a method to improve hybrid corn production.

Her most notable work involved studies on sugarcane and the eggplant (brinjal).

Kazi M. Badruddoza (1 January 1927-30 August 2023) was a Bangladeshi agronomist who is credited with using Agricultural Genetics and Plant Pathology to increase agricultural production in Bangladesh

Ralph Merrill Caldwell (June 27, 1903, Brookings, South Dakota, November 2, 1976, College Station, Texas) was an American plant breeder, mycologist, and plant pathologist

Albert Tonkin Pugsley (11 March 1910-6 November 2002) was an Australian agricultural scientist and wheat breeder

he turned to wheat breeding after corresponding with William Farrer in 1889

he cross-bred varieties to produce the wheat leaf rust-resistant variety Nabawa

Sarah worked on the hybridization of a number of flowering plants including Narcissus, Colchicum, Hyacinths, Lilium, and Cyclamen

a pioneer of plant breeding

he was responsible for the breeding of several new varieties of wheat

the government of Uruguay hired him to breed plants in that country

began experimenting on tomato genetics

bred several successful crop varieties, notably the wheat cultivar Standard

He worked on the genetics and breeding of maize.

He developed varieties of wheat which resisted rust.

Lena B. Smithers Hughes (June 8, 1905, December 19, 1987) was an American botanist who developed improved strains of the Valencia orange

Peebles and Kearney also collaborated on cotton breeding

He also worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Plant Breeding Research and was keen on crop breeding which he saw as very important for national sustainability.

Major Mereland Goodman (September 13, 1938, March 29, 2026) was an American maize geneticist and plant breeder at North Carolina State University.

He specializes in the field of plant genetic resources, botany, plant and fish breeding.

was appointed professor of genetics and plant improvement in 1952

In 1716-17 he was the first person to scientifically produce an artificial hybrid

William James Farrer (3 April 1845-16 April 1906) was a leading English Australian agronomist and plant breeder.

George Harrison Shull (April 15, 1874, September 28, 1954) was an American plant geneticist who played a central role in the development of hybrid maize and in establishing the genetic basis of heterosis. He was one of several siblings who pursued careers in biology; his brothers included the plant physiologist Charles Albert Shull, professor at the University of Chicago and founding editor-in-chief of Plant Physiology; the zoologist Aaron Franklin Shull of the University of Michigan; and the botanist and botanical illustrator J. Marion Shull.

Nazareno Strampelli (May 29, 1866, in Castelraimondo, Italy, January 23, 1942) was an Italian agronomist and plant breeder.

Edward Murray East (October 4, 1879, November 9, 1938) was an American plant geneticist, botanist, agronomist and eugenicist.

Yuan Longping (Chinese: 袁隆平; pinyin: Yuán Lóngpíng; September 7, 1930, May 22, 2021) was a Chinese agronomist and inventor.

He was awarded this prize for his scientific research in developing 480 wheat varieties that have been released in 51 countries.

Sir Rowland Harry Biffen FRS (28 May 1874, in Cheltenham, 12 July 1949) was a British botanist, mycologist, geneticist and a professor of agricultural botany at the University of Cambridge who worked on breeding wheat varieties.

Orville Vogel (1907-1991) was an American scientist and wheat breeder whose research enabled the "Green Revolution" in world food production.

Family: Joe Burton (son) Glenn W. Burton (May 5, 1910 near Clatonia, Gage County, Nebraska, November 22, 2005 Tifton, Georgia) was an American agricultural scientist notable for his pioneering work in plant breeding, development of pearl millet in 1956, and for other contributions that helped increase world food production. Burton was also known for the development of Bermuda grasses used on athletic fields.

Henry Monroe "Hank" Beachell (September 21, 1906, December 13, 2006) was an American plant breeder.

Surinder Vasal is an Indian geneticist and plant breeder, known for his contributions in developing a maize variety with higher content of usable protein.

Gebisa Ejeta (born 1950) is an Ethiopian American plant breeder, geneticist and Professor at Purdue University.

Robert Mwanga (born 24, May, 1954) is a plant breeder from Uganda.

Prior to founding Nature Source Improved Plants, Tanksley served as the Liberty Hyde Bailey professor of plant breeding and biometry and chair of the Genomics Initiative Task Force at Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He is currently a Professor Emeritus at Cornell University.

Baldur Rosmund Stefansson, (April 26, 1917, January 3, 2002) was a Canadian agricultural scientist and as one of the originators of canola, became known as the "Father of Canola". Born in Vestfold, Manitoba, a son of Icelandic immigrants Guðmundur and Jonina Stefansson, he served in the Canadian army during World War II. After the war, he attended the University of Manitoba where he received a Dip.Ag. in 1949, a B.S.A. in 1950, and a M.Sc. in 1952.

Monty Jones (5 February 1951-28 April 2024) was a Sierra Leonean plant breeder and politician who served as the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security. Jones served as the Special Adviser to the President of Sierra Leone and Ambassador-at-Large until his appointment to the cabinet. He served as the first Executive Director of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and was adjudged a co-winner of the 2004 World Food Prize. The award was based on his discovery of the genetic process to create the New Rice for Africa (NERICA), which gives higher yields, shorter growth cycles and more protein content than its Asian and African parents.

Dilbagh Singh Athwal (12 October 1928-14 May 2017) was an Indian-American geneticist, plant breeder and agriculturist, known to have conducted pioneering research in plant breeding.

Khem Singh Gill (1 September 1930-17 September 2019) was an Indian academic, geneticist, plant breeder and Vice-Chancellor of the Punjab Agricultural University.

Ebrahimali Abubacker Siddiq (15 July 1937-22 January 2026) was an Indian agricultural scientist, whose research in genetics and plant breeding assisted in the development of various high-yielding rice varieties, such as dwarf basmati and hybrid rice.

Dioscoro Lopez Umali (November 17, 1917, July 1, 1992) was a Filipino agriculturalist and National Scientist of the Philippines awardee, known as "the Father of Philippine Plant Breeding." He was awarded several international honors and distinctions for his outstanding achievements and improvements of rice, corn and other economic plants.

Sears and Sir Ralph Riley (1924-1999) are perhaps the two most important founders of chromosome engineering in plant breeding.

He is known for his contributions to plant breeding, genetics, and plant genetic resources, particularly in maize breeding.

Hari Krishan Jain (28 May 1930 - 8 April 2019) was an Indian cytogeneticist and plant breeder, known for his contributions to the field of genetic recombination and the control of interchromosome level.

Neelamraju Ganga Prasada Rao (5 September 1927-27 July 2016) was an Indian geneticist and plant breeder, known for his efforts in developing hybrid varieties of sorghum, which earned him the moniker, the Father of Hybrid Sorghum.

Sant Singh Virmani is a US-based Indian plant breeder, rice scientist and a former principal scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

Kaderbad Ravindranath (born 4 January 1936) is an Indian agricultural research scientist and cotton breeder.

Ranbir Singh Kanwar (20 December 1930-20 December 2005) was an eminent plant breeder and agronomist who helped usher in the green revolution in India (http://www.sugarcaneindia.com/r_s_kanwar.html).

In agriculture and gardening, hybrid seed is produced by deliberately cross-pollinating parent plants which are genetically distinct.

The PVPA gives breeders up to 25 years of exclusive control over new, distinct, uniform, and stable sexually reproduced or tuber-propagated plant varieties.

She completed further education at the North Carolina State University, earning a Doctor of Philosophy degree in plant breeding in 1994.

Edward S. Buckler is a plant geneticist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service and holds an adjunct appointment at Cornell University.

Ashok Kumar Singh (born 1 July 1962) is an Indian scientist who works in the field of Plant Genetics and Breeding.

Ravi Prakash Singh is an Indian agricultural scientist and wheat geneticist known for his contributions to crop improvement and global food security.

Eric Yirenkyi Danquah is a Ghanaian plant geneticist, professor, founding director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) and former director of the Biotechnology Centre at the University of Ghana.

William Lacy Brown (July 16, 1913, March 8, 1991) was an American geneticist notable for breeding programs in maize, sorghum, soybeans and wheat.

Howard’s research at the Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge to develop a variety of potatoes resistant to the potato cyst nematodes was a significant scientific achievement, as this pest caused losses estimated at £30M annually, for this work he was awarded an OBE in 1976.

Erna Bennett (1925-2012) was a plant geneticist and one of the early pioneers of genetic conservation (biodiversity conservation).

From 1978 to 2000 he was director and head of the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research (Institut für Züchtungsforschung) at the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Cologne, Germany.

Jorge Dubcovsky is a plant geneticist and biologist at the University of California, Davis.

He was then recruited by the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI) at Cambridge to study the introduction of useful variation into the wheat crop from its wild relatives.

James C. Schnable is a plant geneticist and the Nebraska Corn Checkoff Presidential Chair at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where his research program focuses on developing new technologies for crop genetics and breeding.

Krishnaswamy Ramiah (15 April 1892-3 August 1988) was an Indian agricultural scientist, geneticist, parliamentarian and the founder director of Central Rice Research Institute, Cuttack, credited with introducing systematic hybridisation programmes in rice breeding in India.

Known for his studies in the fields of molecular genetics and genomics, Mohapatra is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India, the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding.

Over the course of his career, Meader developed over 50 new strains of plum, peach, squash, rutabaga, sweet corn, melon, watermelon, salad bean, pod bean, pepper, pumpkin, nectarine, bush cherry, kiwi fruit, persimmon, cranberry, raspberry, and blueberry.

Vernon Douglas Burrows was a research scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and an international authority on oat breeding and utilization.

Venugopalan Nambiar (1924-1996) was an Indian agricultural scientist credited with the development of the first hybrid variety of black pepper in the world, Panniyur-1.

He developed a genetically strong line of maize known as Iowa Stiff Stalk Synthetic.

Vijaipal Singh (born 17 January 1945) in Narsan Kalan, Haridwar District of Uttarakhand State, India is an Agricultural scientist associated with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and is known for his contributions to the science of rice genetics and breeding.

Donald A. Young (October 21, 1929, December 7, 2015) was a Canadian scientist whose research greatly impacted potato production in North America, and the international French-fry industry. He is best known for developing the Shepody potato.

Soon Jai Park, Ph.D. (1937-2018) was a Canadian federal research scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Harrow, Ontario. He was internationally known for his dry bean breeding program that expanded bean production in Canada, taking beans that are usually grown in Africa, India, Korea, Japan and Brazil, and breeding them so they could thrive in Ontario and Western Canada to give farmers new crops to grow.

Roswell "Bob" Garst (June 13, 1898, November 4, 1977) was an American farmer and seed company executive. He developed hybrid corn seed in 1930 that allowed greater crop yields than open-pollinated corn.

Naomi Chapman Woodroof (February 5, 1900, January 4, 1989) was an American agriculturalist known for increasing peanut yields five-fold. She was the first woman to attend and graduate from the University of Idaho College of Agriculture and achieved posthumous recognition for her research, including the breeding of peanuts, the fertilization of pecans, and the prevention and control of cotton diseases

Evangelina Villegas Moreno (October 24, 1924, April 24, 2017) was a Mexican cereal biochemist whose work with maize led to the development of quality protein maize (QPM).

Jan Low (born 1955) is an American food scientist. She is known for her work helping develop the biofortified orange-fleshed sweet potato at the CGIAR International Potato Center, for which she was a co-recipient of the 2016 World Food Prize alongside Maria Andrade, Robert Mwanga, and Howarth Bouis