This book highlights the recent progress on the applications of mutation breeding technology in crop plants. Plant breeders and agriculturists are faced with the new challenges of climate change, human population growth, and dwindling arable land and water resources which threaten to sustain food production worldwide. Genetic variation is the basis which plant breeders require to produce new and improved cultivars. The understanding of mutation induction and exploring its applications has paved the way for enhancing genetic variability for various plant and agronomic characters, and led to advances in gene discovery for various traits. Induced mutagenesis has played a significant role in crop improvement and currently, the technology has resulted in the development and release of more than 3600 mutant varieties in most of the crop plants with great economic impact. The field of ‘mutation breeding’ has come long way to become an important approach for crop improvement. This book covers various methodologies of mutation induction, screening of mutants, genome editing and genomics advances and mutant gene discovery. The book further discusses success stories in different countries and applications of mutation breeding in food crops, horticultural plants and plantation crops.
This informative book is very useful to plant breeders, students and researchers in the field of agriculture, plant sciences, food science and genetics.
Prof Suprasanna Penna, was a Senior Scientist and Ex-Head of Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, and a Professor at the Homi Bhabha National Institute, Mumbai. His research contributions are in crop biotechnology, radiation-induced mutagenesis, plant cell and tissue culture, genomics, and abiotic stress tolerance. He has made concerted efforts to apply radiation mutagenesis techniques in vegetatively propagated plants through collaborative research projects with several national and international bodies (IAEA, Vienna). He has published more than 300 publications and has edited special issues of international journals, and four books (two volumes on Salinity Responses and Tolerance in Plants, Volume 1; Targeting Sensory, Transport and Signalling Mechanisms; & Salinity Responses and Tolerance in Plants, Volume 2, Exploring RNAi, Genome Editing and Systems Biology- 2018, on Plant-Metal Interactions-2019, Plant nutrition and food security 2021).
Prof. S Mohan Jain is an Adjunct Professor, Consultant and plant biotechnologist, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. He was awarded Nobel Peace Prize, in commemoration the awarding to IAEA of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2005; also, former consultant to IAEA, the European Union, The Government of Grenada, Iranian date palm Company and the Egyptian Government. He has been involved in in vitro culture, nuclear applications in breeding for the improvement of both vegetatively and seed propagated plants; published over 175 papers in peer reviewed in international journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings. He has edited 65 books in collaboration with international well reputed researchers on In vitro haploid production, somatic embryogenesis, genetic diversity and erosion, biodiversity and conservation, advances in plant breeding, protocols for somatic embryogenesis, date palm biotechnology, ornamental and medicinal plants.
