Abstract
The current knowledge of the main factors governing livestock, crop and plant quality as well as yield in different species is incomplete. For example, this can be evidenced by the persistence of benchmark crop varieties for many decades in spite of the gains achieved over the same period. In recent years, it has been demonstrated that molecular breeding based on DNA markers has led to advances in breeding (animal and crops). However, these advances are not in the way that it was anticipated initially by the researcher in the field. According to several scientists, one of the main reasons for this was related to the evidence that complex target traits such as grain yield, composition or nutritional quality depend on multiple factors in addition to genetics. Therefore, some questions need to be asked: are the current approaches in molecular genetics the most appropriate to deal with complex traits such as yield or quality? Are the current tools for phenotyping complex traits enough to differentiate among genotypes? Do we need to change the way that data is collected and analysed?
Highlights
The current knowledge of the main factors regulating and controlling quality and yield in livestock, crops and plants of economic importance is incomplete
Are the current approaches in molecular genetics the most appropriate to deal with complex traits such as yield and quality? Are the current tools for phenotyping complex traits enough to differentiate among genotypes? Do we need to change the way that data is collected and analysed?
While crop domestication and abiotic stress research is by no means a recent phenomenon, recent developments in next-generation genome sequencing platforms and functional genomics studies have caught the imagination of researchers in the field [30]. This has resulted in multiple research teams exploiting such platforms to better understand the complex dynamics of abiotic stress tolerance in plants. These groups to date have emphasized the role of a number of genetic markers including random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), simple sequence repeat (SSR), and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and have reported the potential of such research to facilitate the advancement of genomic research, which in turn has led to the discovery of novel agronomic traits [30]
Summary
The current knowledge of the main factors regulating and controlling quality and yield in livestock, crops and plants of economic importance is incomplete. Researchers still use the reductionist approach, looking for individual or groups of markers, and not using the advantages provided by these holistic techniques [26,27] These methods have been developed and implemented as an important tool for monitoring and quantifying the number of metabolites induced by the interactions between genotype, terroir, viticultural/management practices and the winemaking processes in grapes [26,27]. This has resulted in multiple research teams exploiting such platforms to better understand the complex dynamics of abiotic stress tolerance in plants These groups to date have emphasized the role of a number of genetic markers including random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), simple sequence repeat (SSR), and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and have reported the potential of such research to facilitate the advancement of genomic research, which in turn has led to the discovery of novel agronomic traits [30]. The incorporation of such has resulted in the investigation of various dynamics aspects of plant metabolism [31]
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