Biology and Breeding of Crucifers PDF

Preface

Despite recent advances made in rapeseed-mustard breeding, the need and opportunities to increase its production, productivity, oil content and quality, and protein yield are as great today as they have ever been. The alien variations available in wild crucifers have been utilized enormously by the technique of chromosome and genetic engineering to develop noble varieties. Realizing the importance of crucifer crops in Europe and the rest of the countries of the world, there is an urgent need to search for new gene pools with special reference to wild species and to update the knowledge of the recent technologies developed thus far in enhancing rapeseed-mustard production at the global level. At present, no single publication available deals exclusively with crucifers, with the primary emphasis on wild species.

This book includes 18 chapters that have been well prepared by leading Brassica scientists around the world with extensive experience, and their contributions are well recognized worldwide. Chapters 1 and 2 deal with the systematics and phylogenies of wild crucifers, while Chapters 3 and 4 describe the major wild relatives of crucifers accompanied by beautiful photographs to assist in recognizing diagnostic characteristics and to aid in the identification of the species. This is followed by chapters on breeding methods, self-incompatibility, cytoplasmic male sterility, germination and viability, and plant-insect interactions in crucifers. Chapters 10 and 11 provide a detailed account of comparative cytogenetics and distant hybridizations involving wild crucifers. The phytoalexins and their role are discussed in Chapter 12, followed by chapters on introgression of genes from wild crucifers (Chapter 13), biotechnology (Chapter 14), and microspore culture and haploidy breeding (Chapter 15). Another chapter (Chapter 16) on genetic improvement of vegetable crucifers using wild species has been added to enhance the beauty of this book. Finally, Chapter 17 provides a brief account of industrial products from wild crucifers and Chapter 18 describes the preservation and maintenance of crucifer plant genetic resources at the global level. Although a few chapters may overlap with each other to some extent with regard to subject matter, this has been dealt with in depth by each of the contributors.

I am highly indebted to Professor Nagendra Sharma, Honorable Vice-Chancellor, Sher-e- Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu, India, for encouraging me to carry out research on crucifer crops with all the required modern facilities. I am also thankful to all the contributors of the various chapters for their ready response.

Help rendered by Professor Marcus Koch, Heidelberg University, Germany; Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz, Head, Missouri Botanical Garden, Missouri, United States; Professor Suzanne I. Warwick, Eastern Cereal and Oilseeds Research Centre, Ontario, Canada; Professor Martin A. Lysak, Institute of Experimental Biology, Masaryk University, Czech Republic; Professor M. Soledade C. Pedras, University of Saskatchewan, Canada; Professor Y. Takahata, Iwate University, Japan; Professors Shyam Prakash and P.R. Kalia, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India, is also gratefully acknowledged.

I am indeed grateful to Professor W.J. Zhou, Crop Science Institute, Hangzhou, China, and to Dr. César Gómez Campo, Unversidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain, for providing technical input and critically reviewing some of the chapters. Ms. Randy Brehm, assistant editor, CRC Press, deserves special thanks for bringing this book to life. Dr. Aditya Pratap, assistant professor, Division of Plant Breeding & Genetics, SKUAST-Jammu, also deserves sincere thanks for an outstanding and formidable volume of correspondence with regard to this book. Shri Madan Mohan Gupta, my father in-law, has been the instrumental force behind this book. Unfortunately, he has left for heavenly abode. I owe so very much to this departed soul and also to my better half, Dr. Neena Gupta, for their unstinting help and patience during the preparation of this manuscript.