Molecular Breeding
 

The development of molecular biology and bioinformatics offers substantial opportunities for enhancing the effectiveness of classical plant breeding programmes. These tools can be integrated into breeding workflows in order to be able to efficiently analyse high numbers of crosses at the early seedling stage. Through this approach, both the phenotype (observable identity of an individual) and the genotype (genetic identity of an individual) of new varieties can be analysed and the performance of new specific introgressed traits can be predicted. The goals of this integration of technologies in classical breeding are to create genotype-to-phenotype trait knowledge for breeding objectives and to use this knowledge in product development and deployment for the resource poor farmer.

 

With this molecular breeding (also called Marker Assisted Breeding, MAB), the transfer of multiple genes of interest and genomic regions (Quantitative Trait Loci, QTL) involved in polygenic traits, has been successfully used in many crops in the industrial countries, but more rarely in developing countries. The reason is that the needs of these technologies are underestimated. There is a shortage of trained personnel, inadequate access to genotyping, inappropriate phenotyping infrastructure, unaffordable bioinformatics systems and a lack of experience of integrating these new technologies with traditional breeding. But recently, initiatives have been started in many developing countries to make the new technologies available, for example, for eastern and central Africa with the new technology platform BecA (Biosciences for eastern and central Africa), which is in cooperation with the CGIAR centre ILRI in Nairobi, an initiative of NEPAD and the Canadian government, and actively supported by the Syngenta Foundation.

 

Large bioinformatics systems have been developed for breeding programmes in the course of the last two decades. The availability of molecular data, linked to pedigrees and phenotypic evaluation, now makes breeding analysis a reality. Over the last decade, several international research centres in developing countries (e.g. CGIAR centers and others), together with National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) and modern technology platforms like BecA, have started to develop bioinformatics programmes to handle genetic resources and crop improvement information.

 

The increased development of genomics and associated DNA technologies in recent years represents a quantum jump in our molecular understanding of important plant breeding traits. More advanced marker technologies, such as Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) or more recently the paradigm shift with second generation massive parallel DNA sequencing technologies (genome wide scanning), open totally new ways to improve the efficiency of breeding programmes. It is now realistic to consider the possibility that for the first time developing countries can also benefit from these developments.