The Role of Plant Breeding Under Changing Climate

Zewdu Asrat

doi:10.7176/jbah/11-4-04

Abstract

Climate change is now unequivocal, particularly in terms of increasing temperature, increasing CO2 concentration, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level, while the increase in the frequency of drought is very probable but not as certain. Even though climate change is one of the major current global concerns, it is not new. Several climate Changes have occurred before, with dramatic consequences in history. Plant breeding is the activity of developing diverse plant varieties that can contribute usefully to cropping and production systems. These breeding efforts are directed at plant improvement. But ‘improvement’ is a subjective and relative goal and it is useful to regularly break up plant breeding objectives and procedures into clearly defined and manageable units. Owing to the imperatives of food security, plant breeding must combine the objective of ecological intensification with that of adaptation to overall societal and global changes. Keywords: Climate change, Green revolution, Genetic gain DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/11-4-04 Publication date: February 28 th 2021

Highlights

Climate change is projected to reduce yield growth rates in much of the world, especially in tropical regions
Owing to the imperatives of food security, plant breeding must combine the objective of ecological intensification with that of adaptation to overall societal and global changes
Increase in the areas affected by salinity is highly probable Increasing frequency of biotic stress is highly probable Given this scenario, and given that plant breeding has been a success story in increasing yield (Dixon et al 2006), plant breeding may help in developing new cultivars with enhanced traits better suited to adapt to climate change conditions using both conventional and genomic technologies (Habash et al 2009)

Summary

Introduction

Climate change is projected to reduce yield growth rates in much of the world, especially in tropical regions. There will be gains in some crops in some regions of the world, the overall impact of climate change on agriculture is expected to be negative, threatening global food security (Nelson et al 2009)

Results

Conclusion