The journey of genetics in the last 100 years has never seen a dull moment. Path breaking discoveries and stimulating concepts have been plenty. These discoveries and concepts are being fully exploited for crop improvement. Conventional approaches in plant breeding is primarily based on phenotypic selection for agronomically important traits, this often encounters considerable difficulties, particularly those posed by genotype x environment interactions. Besides, testing procedures may be many times difficult, unreliable, and expensive due to the nature of the target traits or target environment. Impressive advances in molecular genetics over the last two decades have provided us with a range of tools and techniques for analyzing genomes. Molecular markers, an important outgrowth of modern genetics, are now available in abundance in both plants and animals. Innovative techniques making use of these markers have facilitated analysis of genetic variation reliably and efficiently at the DNA level. Besides, their significant contribution to the basic understanding of the genomes, DNA based markers have shown their value in mapping genes conferring economically important traits in various crop plants. Recent successes in gene tagging, QTL mapping, pyramiding, and marker-assisted selection, shall form the foundation of 'precision breeding'. An efforts have been made about the principals and methods used in molecular breeding aspects in present book. Plants breeders are striving to meet the challenges of increased production by developing plants with higher yield, resistance to pests, diseases and weeds and tolerance to various abiotic stresses, a concerted efforts are made to give suitable examples of the application of molecular markers in the improvement of the crop plants, so that the researchers and students in the field of genetics and breeding, may aware of the impact of molecular breeding in crop improvement. Contents of the book are given below.
Autorentext
Dr. R.K. Singh, M.Sc., Ph. D. was born on 31st March 1962. He did his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. from Lucknow University, Lucknow. He joined U. P. Council of sugarcane Research as Scientific Officer (Genetics) and served for eleven years and he was also in-charge of Genetics and Cytogenetics section. After that he joined Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) as Senior Scientist (Genetics) at National Research Centre for Soybean, Indore. Presently, he is working at Division of Crop Improvement, Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research, Lucknow in the field of molecular breeding and transgenic. He has been awarded SERC visiting fellowship (DST) and National Biotechnology Associateship (DBT) in the year 1998 and 2000 in the field of Basic Molecular Biology, respectively and worked in the laboratory of National reputes. He worked on molecular markers for genetic diversity, tagging and mapping of gene/QTLs in the crops like rice, soybean and now on sugarcane. He was one of the pioneer molecular breeders in soybean crop in India. He was Principal Investigator in the Networking projects launched by ICAR on the molecular breeding and development of transgenic and functional genomics for soybean crop. He has more than sixty research papers to his credit published in the journals of national and international repute. He guided many M.Sc. students in the field of molecular breeding. He also visited Germany for learning advance technique in the field of Cytogenetics in the year 1994. He is member of several academic societies and editor of journal. Recently, he has co-edited a book on Plant Genomics and Bioinformatics.
Dr Rajesh singh is currently Course Coordinator of Plant Biotechnology at Rajiv Gandhi South Campus and Professor of Genetics & Plant Breeding in the Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Professor Singh also served as Senior Scientist at Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research, Lucknow and at Vivekanand Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansanthan, Indian Council of Agriculture Research, Almora for almost 8 years. Prof Singh also served as Assistant Professor and lecturer for over 8 years at Banaras Hindu University and G B Pant university of Agriculture and Technology, Pant Nagar. Uttarnchal. Prof Singh having over 20 years research experience in field of maize breeding and biotechnology (molecular breeding), rice/hybrid rice and sugarcane breeding and crop genetic resources. Prof Singh successfully completed about 15 projects with total outlay of about 5 crores of national and international importance. Prof Singh has developed and released 16 crop varieties of rice and maize of national importance. Prof. Singh successfully initiated and executed biotechnological programmes at VPKAS, Almora, Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research, and BHU, Varanasi. Initiated programmes on mapping of quantitative trait loci for northern corn leaf blight (NCLB) in maize and marker aided selection for Quality Protein Maize (QPM) , red rot and top borer in sugarcane etc. Prof Singh has over 120 publications to his credit including 3 books/bulletin. Prof Singh is having about 15 years teaching experience at under graduate and postgraduate levels. He is recipient of several awards including SEE Fellow Award. Prof Singh did his graduation and post graduation form Haryana Agriculture University, Hisar and Ph.D form ND University of Agriculture and Technology, Faizabad, U.P., India.