Biotechnology and Plant Breeding

Plant breeding is an integrative discipline that is defined by the product, i. e., a crop cultivar. Principles of breeding provide the framework, while technologies (including biotechnology) provide the tools for implementation. The successful execution of plant breeding depends on: availability of genetically variable populations, effective selection in such populations, and efficient testing of breeding lines. A measure of the contribution of biotechnology is to consider examples of its present and future impact on each of these steps in the breeding process.