Q- Define plant breeding. Discuss role of selection and hybridisation in plant breeding.
Answer- Plant breeding can be done in many ways but the most popular and successful method is Hybridisation.
Hybridisation is one of the moist advantageous source or method to improve crop variety not only in crop this method is also used in animals to improve their breed as well as production. In hybridization the crossing may be intervarietal (this means between different varieties), interspecific (interspecific means between different species of same genus) or intergeneric (intergeneric means between different genera).
Hybridisation is the process of crossing of two plants differing from each other genotypically in one or more traits.There are three main objectives of hybridisation:
1. To produce a single variety having combination of good characters.
2. To increase as well as generate variations through recombination.
3. To exploit as well as utilize the hybrid vigour.
According to question, the main advantages of hybridisation are as follows:
1. The improved hybrid variety is vigorous in growth.
2. The hybrid has more disease resisting power.
3. The hybrid provides more production as compared to parent.
4. Hybrid has dominant characters of both parental bodies.