Breeding objectives and requirements for producing transgenics for major field crops of india

†To identify crop improvement objectives in twelve important field crops (rice, wheat, maize, sorghum, pearl millet, pigeonpea, chickpea, mungbean, cotton, potato, mustard and soybean) that are grown extensively in India, we conducted a survey amongst plant breeders, pathologists, entomologists and agronomists specializing in each of these identified crops. A questionnaire was sent to around fifteen scientists actively involved with each crop with the following queries: (1) Identification of problems with the crop at the regional level in terms of priority, (2) Identification of problems with the crop at the national level in terms of priority, (3) Which are the most extensively grown cultivars of the crop at the regional and at the national levels?, (4) What steps could be taken to raise the yield of the crop (heterosis breed ing, pure-line breeding)?, Do you know of combiners that would give high heterosis in the crop?, (5) Do you know of germplasm sources that could be used for meeting some of the breeding objectives?, (6) What is your asses sment of need for transgenics (a) for nutritional enhance ment, (b) for resistance to biotic stresses, (c) for resistance to abiotic stresses, (d) for herbicide resistance and (e) for value addition? A list of pests and pathogens known to affect each of the above crops as given in Handbook of Agriculture (Indian Council of Agricultural Research, 1997) was also sent to the specialists for help in answering question 2. The five most important problems identified by the specialists in response to the questions 1 and 2 were given scores. The foremost important problem identified was given a score of 5 followed by scores of 4, 3, 2 and 1 for problems identified in descending order of importance. For each of the breeding objectives identified by the res pondents, a total score was calculated. Cumulative score for each objective was normalized to a percentage score. In Figure 1, first five problems identified for a crop are given with their scores in top five boxes and all the other problems identified by the respondents are put with a normalized cumulative score in the lowermost box (for all crops except pearlmillet). The breeding objectives identified in relation to regional needs were compared with the objectives identified at the national level and the findings are highlighted in this article. Figure 2 shows the area under cultivation and the production levels of different crops that have been dealt with in this study (except mungbean). This information is presented to highlight changes in production, area under cultivation and yield of the crops over the years. Rice (Oryza sativa) Rice is the most extensively grown crop of India and is grown in almost all parts of the country. This crop is grown under diverse agro-ecological conditions as irrigated rice, upland rice, lowland rice and deepwater rice. Objectives related to breeding for resistance to