Technological perspectives for plant breeding

Abstract

New Breeding Technologies? For some, both inside and outside the scientific community, this phrase is synonymous with gene editing—or used exclusively to describe the application of CRISPR/Cas9 to plant improvement. Much as, historically, the term ‘biotech crops’ has been hijacked to only mean crop plants produced using genetic engineering. However, ‘breeding technologies’ refers not only to genetic modification using techniques of molecular biology, but also to a vast number of other techniques developed for breeding via the application of scientific advancements emanating from disciplines such as computer science, plant biology, statistics, automation, robotics and artificial intelligence. This concept is not new: in reality, technology has been a feature of crop improvement since early in the last century.