• Introduction and Accomplishment Through Plant Breeding • Patterns of Evolution of Crop Plants and Centres of Diversity of Crops • Centres of Origin, Agro-Diversity and its Significance • Pre-Breeding and Plant Introduction • Genetic Basis of Plant Breeding • Modes of Reproduction in Crop Plants • Genetic Composition of Cross-Pollinated Population • Nature of Variabillity • Oligogenic and Polygenic Traits • Biomedical Techniques in Plant Breeding • Breeding Method: Self-Pollinated Crops • Breeding Method: Cross-Pollinated Crops • Heterosis and Inbreeding Depression • Pollination Controls: Self-Incompatability, Male Sterility and Apomixis • Breeding Method: Colonal/Asexually Propagated Crops • Mutation Breeding • Breeding for Resistance to Abiotic Stresses • Breeding for Resistance to Biotic Stresses • Concept of Marker-Assisted Selection (MSA) and Gene Pyramiding • Concept of Plant Ideotype and its Role in Crop Improvement • Concept of Polyploidy • Wide Hybridization • Concept of Double Haploidy • Speed Breeding • Cultivar Development, Testing, Release and Notification • Maintenance Breeding • Participatory Plant Breeding • Plant Varity Protection and Farmers’ Rights Act
• Questions • Index.