Speed Breeding for Indian Agriculture:A Rapid Method for Development of New Crop Varieties

In agriculture, conventional breeding takes a longer time for the development of crop varieties with a minimum of 810 years of breeding cycles. In the context of breeding, rapid generation advancement of segregating populations towards reaching homozygosity will facilitate genetic gain for key traits and the rapid development of improved cultivars. Extra-terrestrial experiments by NASA, USA, to grow crop seeds in space inspired scientists in the University of Queensland and University of Sydney in Australia to develop a speed-breeding platform. Speed breeding uses an artificial environment with enhanced light duration to create longer daylight regimes to speed up the breeding cycles of photoinsensitive crops.