Genetic Improvement of Cereals and Grain Legumes

Abstract

The anticipated population growth by 2050 will be coupled with increased food demand. To achieve higher and sustainable food supplies in order to feed the global population by 2050, a 2.4% rise in the yield of major crops is required. The key to yield improvement is a better understanding of the genetic variation and identification of molecular markers, quantitative trait loci, genes, and pathways related to higher yields and increased tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Advances in genetic technologies are enabling plant breeders and geneticists to breed crop plants with improved agronomic traits. This Special Issue is an effort to report the genetic improvements by adapting genomic techniques and genomic selection.

Keywords: cereal breeding; climate change; genomic selection; molecular markers; yield improvement.

Figure 1

Global trends in (a) increase in population (World Population Prospects 2019; http://population.un.org/wpp/), (b) average temperature (barkeleyearth.org), (c) agrifood demand [4], and (d) required yield improvement of four major crops, i.e., maize, rice, wheat, and soybean [5].

Figure 2

The agronomic traits (given in green boxes) of which improvement can significantly help in achieving higher yield goals in crop plants through the integration of techniques, i.e., plant breeding, genetic engineering, phenomics, and genomics represented by four sides. Bioinformatics and data science are two emerging disciplines that are helping to elaborate the large-scale plant genome/proteome/transcriptome/metabolome data in a meaningful way.